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Turbo Brat Wiring Harness


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Hi,

 

I'm new here and I'm tearing down an 84 Turbo Brat before I send it to the junkyard. I bought it as a parts car for a regular Brat but never got to doing it. It had no transmission when I bought it and the previous owner said he thought it had a leaking head gasket and that the motor ran hot a couple of times. We had a flood in '97 and water was up to the bottom of the dash. It has sat ever since and has a lot of body rot, with two big holes where the jack points used to be up front.

 

Anyway :burnout: I have removed the wiring harness from the engine compartment and also the fuel injector wiring harness. I've taken out the instrument cluster and it appears the previous owner removed the ECU unless it's behind the center section where the heater/ac controls are.

 

My question is, is it worth the bother to remove what's left of the wiring harness behind the instrument cluster or is this particular part of the harness used in all the Brats, with a few connections reserved just for the Turbo Brat?

 

The picture shows parts of the wiring harness sticking out where the instrument cluster used to be. Should I bother removing that section?

 

 

TurboBratUnderneathDash009Edited.jpg

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If you are going to be using the motor you will need all of the harness from under the dash, it is very specific to that motor. Being that you won't ever find any other stock fi ea81's except for the ea81T. And the wiring differs slightly from the brat to the wagon and so on. Ecu should be mounted to the bottom of the steering column.

 

If you are just stripping it to strip it there is no real need.

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No, I won't be using the motor but I'm planning on selling the entire harness with the instrument cluster. So I suppose I will be removing that harness as well. Sigh. But at least it appears the flood didn't reach the level of the wiring because all the connections look nice and clean.

 

The motor I'm sure is toast and not worth trying to fix after all this time. I will probably take the oil pan off as well.

 

Thanks for the info on the ECU. I was wondering about the wires going into the column so must be it's still there. That computer must have been a couple of inches above the water then:

 

TurboBrat009Edited-1.jpg

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You'll most likely have to pull the entire dash to remove all the wiring. And the ecu is behind that lowerpanel near the water line. Its a little iffy about whether water got to the ecu or not, It's too close to call based on that picture.

 

On a side note, I might be interested in the steering column trim top and bottom and the peice by the tilt lever if you won't be using them.

 

 

Also, just curious, did it have the digital or analog cluster?

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Yeah the pic's a little hard to judge by. I think it was maybe 4 inches above the water but I'd have to put the steering column back in place. I've got it tore apart pretty good right now.

 

Had the analog cluster.

 

I'll take a look at the pieces tomorrow as it's dark out now. I think they're in good shape. Don't know what they're worth or anything but I'm trying to recoup my losses on these.

 

Edit to add:

 

I've got my own Brat that was also in the flood but is in good enough shape that it might be fixable. I bought the Turbo with the idea of making one running Brat out of the two but the flood changed that. I'm taking the parts off the Turbo and deciding what's to sell separate and what I'll put with the regular Brat. I didn't want to jump the gun on selling off the parts yet. I'm going to try to sell the regular Brat as a whole parts car.

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Id just aquire another Brat that runs and drives and use the two parts cars to make it really good. Ditch the turbo and just build a Carb Brat, LOTS easier. When you part out the turbo dont forget the gas tank and fuel pump....they are rare and nice for conversions that people do to EFI their old GL's and Brats.

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Are the tanks different inside on the turbo models?

According to my 83 Turbo supplement FSM, no... I dunno what ShawnW was getting at here.

 

I *might* be interested in the wiring harness from the ECU to the engine bay. After examining mine, a P/O got a little happy with custom wiring... I could use an unadulterated wiring harness. But then again, if yours got water in it, the contacts may be corroded and crappy...

 

Let me know when you pull it and how much you'll let it go for.

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Ok, got the harness out. The harness from the dashboard forward is completely intact as far as I can tell. I did not cut anything off and finessed it out of all the nooks and crannies. It looks as good as the day it was installed, with all connectors shiny. They all came apart easy.

 

87Brat001Cropped.jpg

 

The fuse box was the lowest part of the harness, or so I believe, and it looks real clean:

 

87Brat003.jpg

 

87Brat004.jpg

 

The ECU was nowhere to be found so I guess the previous owner took it out. I would think that I'd have run into it when I took the harness out.

 

 

So the gas tank might be worth something too? Oh no, I've got to crawl under there again?! :eek: I'll take a look and see what shape the tank's in. I didn't notice where the fuel pump was located. If I remember correctly, it's not in the tank, right? If it was outside the tank, I would not think it would be in good shape having been under water and then just sitting there. But the tank might be alright. I glanced at it when I was removing the bumper and didn't see anything major. But I'll check out around the seam in the middle.

 

I don't know what the difference is between the turbo Brat gas tank versus the carb'd Brat, but this site http://car-part.com/ does separate the two in the look up so it must be that there's some mods to the Turbo tank.

 

As far as the parts go, I'm trying to get my act together between the two Brats. As I originally stated, I want to sell my original Brat as a parts car and send the Turbo to the j/y. Hate to do it, but the body's too far gone and combined with the fact that the auto trans is missing and the motor being toasted, I just don't see that it's worth keeping in the yard for tire kickers. Right now I've been just taking as many parts off the Turbo Brat as I can save. Once this thing is torn apart and hauled off, I'll then try to get everything sorted out as to what's being sold separately and what's being included with the regular Brat (A regular Brat?? Is there such a beast? :-p ) I want to take it out of the garage and wash it so I can get some good pictures. It'll be in a little bit as I've got a lot of stuff going on.

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I've got four wheels but one of them is bent pretty good judging by the balance weights on the rim. These have been sitting in the barn for years and I can't remember for the life of me if I have any of the center caps. At the time I got them, I was working in Boston, bought them over the phone and my dad picked them up for me. He might not have thought to ask about center caps and I don't remember ever seeing them. I'll look around tomorrow and see if I have them.

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It's an 84. And now that you mention it, the previous owner must have sold the original rims because it's got the normal rust-white wagon wheels.

Those white wagon wheels were standard in 84. Anything else was an option. My 84 T-Wag has white wagon wheels.

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Yeah, I remember them well. Have them on my 87. :cool: That was why I bought the alloy rims. Never got the chance to put them on because I couldn't figure out what to do with the bent one. :-\ The T-Brat had some pretty fancy trim. If the p/o only had the white spokes, he deserved to be pointed and laughed at mercilessly. ;)

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Hi Scott,

 

I just want to repeat that my goal is to sell my 87 as a whole parts car that could possibly be fixed up. To help this along, I want to put all the good parts on it along with a few extras I have. I haven't gone through the 87 yet and once I get done sorting through it all, I'll know what I have to list.

 

I've owned the 87 since new and I do not want to send it to the junkyard if there's a possibility of saving it. I took a loss on it from the flood and I want to recoup some of that too.

 

The T-Brat will most likely go to the j/y next week and I should have everything stripped out this weekend. If it turns out I don't need it, I'd be happy to sell it to you. I'm confused by what you mean by the "plus hardware". The screws themselves are pretty corroded having been in flood water. The rest of the pieces are screwed into the sheet metal except for the bracket at the rear:

BobSixtysHouse010Edited.jpg

 

I will remove that piece too and save it. Like I said, I don't know what's going to be sold separately or not at this point.

 

It's also an automatic console, not the standard.

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I removed the rear bracket and the whole shifter mechanism so it won't go to the j/y. Here is what I have for the radio console brackets:

 

BobSixtysHouse009.jpg

 

Could it be that little doo-dad on the floor under where the radio used to be?

 

The console itself is 3 pieces, so perhaps that's why I was confused.

 

Thanks Bratman.

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