Nolan Penney wrote:
>
> My Volvo's wiring mess fascinates me the same way. Lousy diagrams, and
> the dangdest ways of running wires. No wonder they are so plaged with
> electrical problems. You should see the relay that actuates my
> overdrive! There's six or eight wires going to it, and inside the
> relay, it's got a circuit board, complete with a computer chip!
Volvo wiring diagrams are a sticky point with me, at the moment. Ever
since Volvo's purchase of our company, they have insisted that we do
things their way, including wiring diagrams. The problem, particularly
with larger equipment, is that they are done in ladder format (power at
the top of the page, grounds at the bottom of the page--but not
always--there are far too many closely-spaced parallel lines to trace
accurately, and the diagrams have widely-spaced notations for
connections to single components, such as relays. Volvo wiring diagrams
are universally despised in our industry, and yet, Volvo sees no need to
change their format.
However, the generally fuzzy layout of wiring is not only a Volvo
feature--it seems to be the case with many European cars. Dash wiring on
older VWs was mostly a ball of wires, and this was true of older
Porsches and Audis, as well.
Bar none, though, the most careful wiring and clearest schematics I've
ever encountered were on Toyotas. The proprietary shop wiring diagrams
for those cars were the best I've ever used.
> But the prize for the worse electrical system must go to Lancia. Years
> ago when working at a semi-exotic car dealership we had a
> customer/friend stop by to chew the fat. His wiring harness came up.
> He claimed that at one point Lancia somehow ran out of wires for making
> harnesses, and for a very little while, made wiring harnesses out of one
> gage of red wire.
I've mentioned this on other lists, but Fiat/Lancia wiring is pristine
compared to that coming out of Mexican manufacturers. Six or seven years
ago, the former owner of our company was taken over by a Mexican bus
manufacturer, and the plan was to market their buses in the U.S. Apart
from the president whining, when the buses could not cross the border
because they did not have FMVSS certification, "can't you just bribe the
officials? That's the way it's done here," the electrical wiring was,
frankly, beyond belief, especially for a $250,000 vehicle. One of our
R&D electricians found over fifty hand-twisted wire connections wrapped
in electrical tape in the driver's dash alone.
Underneath the bus (note that these runs are about forty feet long), the
wiring seemed to be done with whatever they could find... all red,
though, a piece of 12 ga. wire hand-twisted to a piece of 18 ga., then
to a piece of 14 ga., and so forth. No tracers, and no wire numbers
(circuit numbers are essential on buses, since there can be five hundred
to eight hundred individual circuits). Then, the wiring was stapled or
taped to the underside of the floorboards, and foam insulation was
applied to floorboards, burying all the wiring. We even found, on
brand-new vehicles, electrical connections covered with masking tape
which had been spray-painted black to make it look at a distance like
black electrical tape.
I'm told production is better now, but I wonder by whose standards.
After that, I'd take a Lancia to work on in a heartbeat. Or anything
which Messrs. Lucas had a hand in doing. <smile>
Cheers.
--
Michael D. Porter
Roswell, NM
[mailto: mporter@zianet.com]
`70 GT6+ (being refurbished, slowly)
`71 GT6 Mk. III (organ donor)
`72 GT6 Mk. III (daily driver)
`64 TR4 (awaiting intensive care)
`80 TR7 (3.8 liter Buick-powered)
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