Capping wires

Another one of my projects. Removed my dash, removed the AC and heater and am in the process of cleaning up the stock wiring harness. Ive found I no longer need almost half of the wire going behind the dash which is awesome, but now I am not sure how to cap the wires since I am unable to get them out of the fuse block.

All the wires on the left I no longer need, the right most are either for the CD player or for the instrument panel. Of course the CD player doesnt work, but thats a whole other issue




So Im going to cut all those wires down, but how do I cap them all? Fold each wire over and wrap it with electrical tape?

Thanks

Id cut them closest to the source they come from and call it a day.

Heat shrink tubing!

Use heat shrink after you cut them. Do not use butt connectors that are crimped on or wire nuts.

I just got through completely eliminating the fuse block and through firewall connection and soldered the wires that were still used together since removing my dash and everything there's nothing that is needed from the fuse panel anymore. If you want pm me and I can take a couple of pics of how to get the wires out of the fuse block and the through firewall connection.

fold the end, and completely cover the fold with heat shrink tubing

ehall said:

fold the end, and completely cover the fold with heat shrink tubing

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^^^^^ this. folding the end over would be the best way to ensure nothing can get in there and cause a short.

or pulling all the extra wiring out of course. Have you looked at just getting a new harness from somewhere like painless performance? I saw someone put one in a TJ that replaces all the factory wiring to to the 4.o, all they kept was the engine computer IIRC.

RCP Phx said:

Heat shrink tubing!

Click to expand...

X2, either get a can of liquid electrical tape or the heatshrink that comes with hot melt glue on the inside. Great stuff, you either dunk the end of the wire in liquid electrical tape and shrink a piece of tubing over it, or just shrink a piece of glue-lined tubing over it. 100% waterproof and will never ever fall off.

Zip Ties!!!!!!!!!!!!!

If you are not using the circuit, just pull the fuse, and cut as short as you can.

dave92cherokee said:

I just got through completely eliminating the fuse block and through firewall connection and soldered the wires that were still used together since removing my dash and everything there's nothing that is needed from the fuse panel anymore. If you want pm me and I can take a couple of pics of how to get the wires out of the fuse block and the through firewall connection.

Click to expand...

If you wouldnt mind posting them up, that would be great. I tried to pull the fuse panel, but the wires seemed taunt and didnt want to pull any wires out, so Im going going to leave it in.


Im a bit of an electrical newbie, so these things are complicated!:gee:

No problem I can take a couple pics when I get off work this evening. If you want to look at it in the mean time the through firewall connector on the inside of the firewall, there's a white and blue plastic retainer clip on the outsides that slide in to keep all the contacts in place. If you remove those retainers then take a real small flat head screw driver and look at the contacts there will be a little notch to one side of them. Push the flat head screw driver down into that notch then angle it towards the contact and slightly turn it back and fourth which releases the clip on the contact and the wire can be pulled out the back. I'll get some pics up this evening that will explain it better.

There's the through firewall connector, on one side is white the other side is a blue piece. Just take a flat head and pry it straight out as they both hold the contacts in and don't worry about switching them around they'll only go in one way. On the bottom left side you can see the last 4 wires I had left by the little brass contacts still in there. If you look at the other positions you can see the notch I was talking about on top of the flat spot where the contact is. Just push a small flat head screw driver in that area and after turning it and pushing it back towards the contact it will release the clip inside allowing you to easily pull the wire out.


There you can see an upclose shot of the contacts in the fuse block. To get these out just put a small flat head on each side of the contact and pry it back towards the contact to release the clips. Then you should be able to easily pull out the wire and contact, or the strip of contacts depending on what circuit you're working on.

If you need any more info or pics let me know as this is the same phase I'm currently at in mine, which also includes eliminating unnecessary wiring under the hood as well and moving the ECU and PDC to the inside of the firewall.

So its a plug at the firewall? It felt like I was pulling wires and I didnt want to go any further.


I ended using some shrink wrap on some of the wires, pulled some fuses and called it good. Looks a lot cleaner and should work at least for the time being.

Yah if you look at it from the engine side there's two connectors and a screw in between the two that I believe is a 7 or 8mm or something like that. If you take that screw out you can then disconnect the engine side of the through firewall connection. Then on the inside under the dash that part is held in with two torx screws in opposite corners (top left bottom right I believe) when you take those two out the dash side of the connector is loose. Then you can just push on the tabs that hold the fuse panel to the firewall connector and get at the wiring. Don't know if you're planning on keeping the dash or not but if your not it's a heck of alot easier to pull the whole dash and have the room to work on it. After I got mine done I think I now have maybe 12 wires out of the original bunch.

How hard is it to get the dash out? How long did it take you and could you put it back or do you have to destroy it to get it out?

It's not to hard to get the dash out. Just strip it down as far as you can by removing the lower trim piece the trim around the gauges and radio and stuff. Then remove the guages, radio, pull the a/c controls out as the vac lines running to it can be picky and are easier to do if its pulled away from the dash a little. There's two 15mm nuts on the bottom side of the steering column that the black bracing bars are held on with and they also have two 15mm bolts into the side to remove them. The dash itself has the screws holding the defrost vent in and then there's a few screws under there holding it up as well. After that there's also the bolts on each end of the dash down towards the bottom should be 15mm as well that the dash has a metal plate that hooks around them to allow it to be set in place the rotated up. If you take your time and remove anything that looks like it's attached to the dash then wiggle it a little bit you can get it out relatively easy it's just ALOT of screws and bolts holding it in.

Thanks for taking the time to help me out with this. I have an 86 wagoneer that had the 2.8l V6. I also had a rust bucket 88 cherokee so I did a complete drive train swap.. problem is that the wiring harnesses in the engine bay are different, so i swapped them out but the bulkhead is the same going into the cab. Inside its all electric windows and doors but luckily they both have mechanical gauges. Basically I have to move the connectors around in the fuse box to match the cherokee part of the bulkhead from the engine bay so that everything gets power when you turn the key on. I think it will be worth the time of taking the dash out to make the fuse box more accessible. The only thing left in the wagoneer is the body and unitbody and the inside wiring harness. Any think you or anybody can think of that might help this wiring mess go faster would be much appreciated.