jimhickcox
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My car "should" work.
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Does anyone have a source for a full wiring harness? I'm looking online and I can't find anything for a car this old. I'm gonna have to do this wire by wire, aren't I?
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I should just send you a wishlist. That transmission I got from you is going strong.
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Bonus points: does anyone know where to find a replacement fusebox? I've been looking on Amazon and all I can find is goofy marina-style ones that use bladed fuses and definitely wouldn't fit in this car. I asked at my local auto shops (orange, yellow, and green flavors) but they don't carry any kind at all, they say.
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Mine is my daily driver, but I'm lucky that in central Texas I can get away with riding a motorcycle pretty much year round, so I have a backup plan. I've been plinking at things but it seems like it'll be a long time before I have the opportunity to pull it all. Boy do I want to, though.
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I've had my '79 Brat for a year or so and, as you'd expect, things occasionally go wrong and then I yell at the car with a wrench and then it's okay again, generally. Right now my biggest headache is a series of minor electrical issues, which for a while had my headlights not working, but since I got them on I've been mostly ignoring. My horn won't beep, though, and that's going to be an issue come inspection time in February, so it's time to deal with it. In my adventures around the guts of my car I've found lots of electrical dead-ends and strange fixes to issues that must have come up years ago, so this seemed like the time to trace out my full harness and see what's actually going on. I diagrammed out all the wires between the battery and the firewall, so now I need to get into the cabin and track the dumb wires around under the console. Does anyone have any sage insight on any of this? Particularly if there's a good way to get under there without making pulling the dash apart and reassembling a major project on its own? Should I just give up and run more wires as my whims suggest and leave vestigial cabling everywhere like people have been doing for nearly 40 years?
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Hitting you up off-list.
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After messing around and not finding anything and then having everything turn back on rather suddenly I've discovered that the power to all the dash stuff is tied to the ignition key landing in a particular spot that it's not necessarily inclined to land it. So that seems to be the solution for that for now.
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I was fidgeting with the back of the radio in my '79 Brat today, and while I was putting the center console piece back in place I must have bumped the wire that runs to the cigarette lighter and sheared it off, because when I went to turn the radio on it was dead, and upon inspection the lighter wire was dangling and the fuse that runs to them both was charred and blown. I replaced the fuse, and I've been metering around. The current now crosses the fuse, but isn't making to the radio or the lighter (or the wipers, which are on the same circuit). Is there another fuse hidden up deep in the dash? I can't think of why there would be a second fuse on the same circuit, but I also can't think of what else could have happened that would kill a whole circuit when the fuse is testing good. Am I missing something dumb here?
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Hey there. My '81 VW Rabbit Pickup was crushed by a much larger truck, and I decided to go a TOTALLY different direction when I replaced it and get a '79 Brat. So here I am. It was cheap. It drives. I have new problems every single day. I'm sure I'll have a lot of questions.
