Replacement wiring harness? Like Painless or KwikWire

[Papay]

I've had this on my mind since my voltage regulator fried a wire inside my main harness...van caught fire underneath, etc.  Years ago when I was heavily involved in V-dubs, I always told myself if I ever restored one fully it would get a brand new wiring harness.  Too many problems with former hack-job repairs, age, corrosion, and whatnot.  In the case of my Toyota, I imagine it is newer than many of yours, but suffered a lot of 'creative' repairs.  

So I'm wondering if any of you have completely replaced your wiring harness with one of the options out there in the hot rod world.  Off-roaders use them a lot as well.  Plenty of Youtube tutorials, and as a former aircraft mechanic there is nothing about wiring that scares me.  

Please relate your experience if so!

[Banjo]

There are plenty of posts on this site regarding rewires, with lots of useful info.  Just search "rewire" or similar.

I rewired my KE30 corolla completely, forward of the rear engine bay firewall.  Probably the best thing I ever did.  Also did the same with all rear lights.

https://www.rollaclub.com/board/topic/65882-after-market-ke-light-column-switch/

The Toyota factory body manuals, usually have diagrams of the individual circuits, which are much easier to follow, than those "rats nest" wiring diagrams, you get in most car manuals. 

The advantage with rewiring from scratch is that you can increase the wire guage & reduce length of circuit path, which ultimately results in less voltage drop issues, & "BRIGHTER LIGHTS" !

Usually, up under the dash is OK, as it is all protected.  Adding extra fuses also helps, as Toyota used to often feed several circuits from the one fuse, to keep down the fuse count, which can be confusing.

Any specific help you need, just give us a yell.

Altezzaclub on this forum, is a wiz on breaking down auto circuits, & issues, so search some of his posts.

Cheers Banjo

[rebuilder86]

One thing ill add, concentrate on covering every possible piece of coper wire with heat shrink, or solder, or both.

The humidity in the middle of the archipelago, mixed with the geology of magnetite (which turns into fine magnetic abbrasive ferrous rust particles in the air) makes it the worst place on earth for... Welll.... Anything.

I can't make a set of 6x9s last more than a year. The dust gets in to the coils and kills em.

[Papay]

I think I'll put it on my list of things to do.  You are right about the dust, it just gets into everything.  I have already removed most things that I never plan to use, such as the rear wiper washer, extra speaker wire, the rear AC system, and I'll be converting to manual windows.  This van will only have basic wiring circuits, and thats it.  A harness replacement should be fairly straightforward, except that most of them will be GM or Ford based if I order a kit.  So that will mean splicing in all of the necessary connectors.  

Yeah we had a funny experience at a local repair shop, who didn't even own a set of wire crimpers.  Crikey. Solder, crimp, heat shrink, and wire loom is how I roll.