The Stovebolt Site Forums The Shop Area The Electrical Bay Cloth covered wiring harness loom

For lack of a better name, does anyone know how the cloth covered wiring harness on a '41 was bound? What I'm referring to is, for instance, the vinyl wiring I had years ago was bound in black electrical tape. There are mesh type tubes, and of course the split wrap plastic coils which have an axial split from end to end.

I would think that the varnished cloth wiring was bound with twine or something of that sort. After spending the big bucks for this "pretty" harness I am reluctant to cover it with tape, plastic, or ty-raps. Any ideas?

Don

My "original" wiring was strung from place to place between clamps...

What I have seen on the original wiring is that there was a woven cloth cover over the wire bundle that allowed individual wires to exit at the appropriate places. The cloth cover would "Y" off when several wires left the main bundle. there were metal clips to hold the harness in place.

What Baldy said. I don't know where you bought your harness but the folks at YNZ have and will sell you anything you need.

I have seen some "laced" with waxed flat string. Don't know if it was orginial to the car.

I've used the waxed flat string (spot tie cord) to build harnesses, but I never saw any original early atomotive use of it. It was used in aerospace harnesses and in domestic electronics.

I'm surprised that whoever you bought the harness from didn't wrap the wires like they were originally. I just purchased a complete harness from Rhode Island Wiring for my 51 and they were all wrapped like the original. I can't say about your 41, but by the AD era the main harness from the firewall was wrapped in what basically amounted to vinyl electrical tape. Other areas, such as the fuel tank sending unit wiring and headlight and taillight harnesses were wrapped in the cloth wiring loom.

Bob

I think that tape wrapping was all post-war.

I'm a bit ashamed to admit it but I haven't taken the harness completely out of the box yet. I opened it (the box) and on first blush it didn't appear that the harness was wrapped - hence my question. I'll head up to the shop in the next day or so and check it out in all its spread out glory.

Also, I saw a '41 Ford :confused: at a show the other day and the harness was wrapped in vinyl black tape. The owner said it came that way and was supposed to be original.

I'll let you know what I find when I pull the harness completely out of the box.

Don

Dear Don;

They (GM) were still using the woven cloth in 1949, but not in 1951. They may have quit in 1950.

I think Chevs of 40s makes them that way.

Good luck.

This might not help you Don, but maybe someone else may benafit from it along the same lines. I'm sure that there were many material changes after the "big one".
My 1950, 3604 has the original wiring harness and is in good condition and looks like this;
From the starter, across the upper firewall and into the ignition switch is cloth loom. From the light switch and through firewall the loom for stop light switch, regulator, generator, horn, and lights this is tape wrapped. The jumper across the core support from terminal block to terminal block for the head lights is tape wrapped. From the terminal blocks to the head lights is cloth loom. The loom that splits off to the gas gauge and all the way back to the tail lights is cloth loom.
Denny Graham
Sandwich, IL

I took the harness out of the box and all of my answers where staring me in the face Second Blush -- beautiful looming :confused: . You would of thought that I would have checked prior to posting this topic. Anyway the tread had some good info and I'm as pleased as could be.

Tiny - I did purchase the harness from YNZ

Don