1985 Alfa Romeo GTV6 (my first Alfa)

Just a thought and I don't know if you even want to think about going down this path but what about a modern wiring system?

InfinityBox formally known as ISISpower.

I can't imagine why they changed their name.

Flight Service: WOW Why haven't I seen that on the board before?

Rusted: That's something I seem to keep relearning. Holy smokes. Lucky for me the people sending me the parts are patient enough to send me lots of pictures before I pay them I was seconds away from buying a new heater control box before I realized that it didn't match what I had in the car. the guy then went back out to his yard (he has a couple Alfas he's parting out) and searched all of them and came back with "nope, never seen one like that before!". Cheshire Alfa in the UK has been a pretty good source when I've exhausted the stateside options.

Wheelsmitty and RedGT: Thanks! You just wait, I'll make this thing "reliable" yet (even I do die smothered, buried underneath it)

On a good note, I finally got that darn plug and relay box changed! Since it had that black wire going to the tach connector I decided "what better place to move to than here?" and started at it all over again.

Good times

Hungary Bill wrote: Good times

masochist

Say what you will about Alfas but my 81 only left me stranded once in the 6 years that I DD that car. It popped the fuse for the FI once as I was leaving work, easy and quick fix.

There were times that I had to drive in less than ideal conditions, like the time I had to drive almost an hour holding the key in just the right position when the ignition switch took a crap, but I made it home.

I REALLY want another one of these.

Hey, I just had to replace the ignition switch in my Impala for the same darn reason!

Looks like work is going to take me away for a couple weeks. Leave it to a job to break my hobby momentum...

Even a work trip cant stop me (mwa ha ha ha). I've been having the worst time finding the two oil pan gaskets I need to button up the bottom end of the 3-liter, yesterday I found a UK supplier that was all but unknown to me. Anyhoo $100 later I have the two gaskets I needed for the bottom end AND the 6 plug-well gaskets I've been missing for the valve covers!

I also went to a junk yard yesterday to look for some eurospec goodies but no GTV6's so far. I may try to hit another one today but the weather may keep me indoors.

Good times!

(you know, in hindsight I should have brought my wire harnesses with me... Missed opportunity there)

Back in town and back at it.

Tach connector: Check

Your burnt connectors look exactly like the one's in my X.

mblommel wrote: Your burnt connectors look exactly like the one's in my X.

oh buddy. But your X is so beautiful! If you need any wiring, I'm bound to have some left over...

Ignition switch:

Two things.

• That green wire is purple on the harness I bought (I'll double check the diagrams just to make sure but I'm reasonably certain it's ok)

• that green wire was held in with electrical tape.

Good times.

next up on the hit list isn't as bad as it looks. Of these 6 colored wires, I'll be deleting four that go to the power mirror (as I plan on going to a manual option). The remaining two may or may not be deleted. It all depends on whether or not I can find a manual window option.

The ground wires near that relay box though... I guess there's no getting around that

Good times

From 6 to 2 (as promised). I'm going to hold off on the replacement of the last two until I decide what to do about that manual window idea.

The brake light switch was the last of the bunch that I had removed from the new harness. I put it off 'till last because it was the easiest, but even it wasn't the same (old harness was 2-wires, new harness had a pigtail off of the red-wire that I just ended up cutting)

Now to move on to the next section (even though I haven't replaced those grounds yet). I've been putting this section off because it's just a mess and I'm really not sure what's going to happen with it.

In just that section of the photo above you're going to see

• lots of twisted wires

• more tape

• solder

• more twisted wires

• mismatched wire colors

• wires that don't seem to go anywhere...

and so on

twisted

Unknown destination

more twisted

Shielded dizzy wire split into two via electrical tape

Yellow wire turned ground

hacked cooling fan wires (also they seem to loop together )

Green wire taped to melted white.

Here goes!

Forgot:

I got my pan and baffle plate gaskets in from the UK. I'm going to save the engine work until I need a break from the wiring, I've got decent momentum going and I don't want to get distracted

I want another Alfa.

I may have enough spares left over to send you a slightly used GTV6

How do you not have labels stuck all over this harness by now? Can you remember things as you think you figure them out? When I built the harness for the RX7 I labeled every wire on both ends and sometimes in the middle if I felt lost between the front and back of the car.

I would've gone insane by this point, trying to sort this car out. The real progress you're making is awesome! Great thread!

Thanks

I do use labels (well, masking tape and permanent marker). Usually only label the ends though, as the destination determines the run location. Nothing on my new harness is labeled though which makes grabbing what I need difficult. ESPECIALLY when things don't always match up to what I'm trying to fix. Lots of notes (if you see a spiral notebook, that's my porto-brain) and lots of back and forth between the new harness, old harness, and the wire diagrams. Right now I'm averaging about one replacement run every two or so sessions (30-minutes per session) with lots of research time in between.

In other news, I have a new favorite! (see below)

Nice bodge. Looks like they did a solid job and twisted the new wire around that terminal good and tight. Seems legit.

I tell ya. You'd think this stuff would quit surprising me, but alas...

Speaking of "solid job of twisting", all that stuff I highlighted in this picture:

Is all related to the electric fans. Both positives are twisted together, then twisted to a white wire, which is THEN twisted to a blue wire before going off and doing its thing.

The grounds are also twisted together then twisted to a pink wire that's been twisted to a yellow wire that's twisted to the ground...

It's taken me a while to chase all this down, and now that I have I'm not quite sure how I'm going to proceed (the new harness doesn't have the connectors for the fans on it).

I'm thinking I'm just going to make a new run with a colored pair of wires that matches the diagrams somehow, but not entirely sure yet. I know I can't do anything but cut and re-crimp the fan connectors but that's going to be sloppy having the crimps so close and not staggered plus the fact that the wires will be green between the crimp and fans but another color running off into the bundles. Maybe hide the mismatched colors under shrink wrap...

Meh, we'll see. Till then, I have lots of other wires to keep me busy.

Too many days of thinking lately, not enough working. Turned my attention back to easier swaps to keep things moving.

Good times.

Hungary Bill wrote: Good times.

apologies... RANT

NO..... not a good time....all this effort for an inferior wiring system that is 40 years old... I HATE wiring... and your resistance to improving this marginal system by investing 10's of hours, where in 1/2 the time a nice NEW harness would be in and you could move on......

Rant over, proceed with this build thread

pfft. Why do it that way once when I can do it this way and then the right way the second time around?

Messing with these wires is actually kind of therapeutic. Honest answer to your question though: Because I have no money. There are no "new" chassis wire harnesses available for the GTV6 specifically and even a generic painless kit is $500 where as this chassis harness was pennies on the dollar. More work, less money, cross your fingers it'll work because I ain't got the scratch to do it again (I wont have another dime for this project until the Impala sells)