We were asked to be a part of a complete automotive rewiring project where we would take a Classic Muscle Car and rewire with a Universal Wiring Kit. We decided to take this project on as we know that many people are adding universal kits, but not completely rewiring. We wanted to help those who plan to take on this task themselves and to show the proper techniques to successfully rewire their Classic Car with a Universal Wiring Kit.

For related wiring diagrams click on the Documents tab above.

With any installation, you need to plan before you do anything. We had meetings about this installation and discussed what was going to be upgraded and what would remain stock before we selected the components that would be used. Here are the plans that we made:

Aftermarket Gauges: We decided to replace the gauge cluster and install new aftermarket gauges. This is the better choice than staying with the stock gauges and failure lights as you eliminate the amp gauge and get actual readings on oil pressure, volts and water temperature, etc. Trying to get your old dash to function 100% as it did could be a very difficult task with the new wiring kit.

Heat / AC: We decided that at some point we will be replacing the old heat/ac unit with an aftermarket unit. With this in mind, we removed the old unit that took up most of the firewall under the dash. This allows us to mount the new fuse box on the firewall under the dash and out of the way. If we did not do this, we would have discussed mounting the fuse box in the trunk.

With a plan layed out, we then decided what components we would be installing.

We use only the best products available when we rewire your vehicle. Products that we know perform the best were looked at and selected. We would like to thank the following sponsors for providing the products that we needed to complete this project. The picture above is what we received for this project . . . we will showcase individual products as we get to them during the installation.

Sponsors

American Autowire - www.americanautowire.com

Premier manufacturer of GM Factory-Fit, Classic Update, Power Plus, Builder Series and Highway Series kits. Since this is an article for installing a universal kit, we chose the Highway 22. American Autowire provided the Highway 22 Universal Wiring Kit, a remote battery disconnect with a memory guard.

Autometer Gauges - www.autometer.com

Autometer is our first choice for gauges in all of the vehicles that we wire. Autometer provided us with a 6 gauge set of Ultra Lite II gauges.

Tie Wraps - www.tiewraps.com

We use Tie Wraps for all of our wiring accessory needs. From connectors to double-walled heat shrink and convoluted tubing, Tie Wraps has the supplies and prices that you will love. Tie Wraps provided all of the heat shrink, convoluted tubing, connectors and some other goodies that we will point out later on this page.

This is a shot of the wiring under the hood before we got started.

We started in the engine compartment by removing all of the wires and planned to run the wires pretty much the same way to stay with a "stock" look.

Here is the old heat/AC that we will be removing. Joe decided that he would like to install a Vintage Air or Classic Air unit as an update and to open up some room under the dash.

Do I sense a future project in the works?

Everything is removed from the dash and we are now pulling all of the old wiring out.

We will be replacing ALL of the wiring in this car.

The brake lights, running lights, reverse lights and side marker lights will be rebuilt. The back bumper will need to be removed to get to the light sockets.

We lucked out with this Dart because all of the sockets were rebuildable with supplies included in the wiring kit. We will show you the rebuild process later in this rewire project.

We made a plate to cover the bulkhead hole and installed a grommet to run the wires through. We used a grommet from the grommet kit that was supplied to us by Tie Wraps (Part # TGK-254).

Note: One thing that we realized when the wiring was complete is that it would have been better if we had 2 holes to run wires out to the engine compartment. We were able to run all of the wiring out this single hole, but it would have been nice to have a smaller, second hole to route the wires that had to go to the passenger side.

We are getting ready to wire the new Autometer Gauges. We layout the gauge cluster on the bench and decide how much lead wire we want to keep to make the cluster easy to maintain.

Notice that we duct tape the lead wires to the bench top so we can keep all of the wires the same length and neat.

The gauge wiring kit is included in the Highway 22 Kit.

Tie wraps sent us a tie wrap gun to see what we thought. Well, I have to admit that I love it! It was always a tool that I thought I would never use . . . well now, I can't put it down.

The gun pulls the tie wrap tight and cuts it when it reaches the set tension. The gun has 3 different tensions to choose from.

You should have one of these tools . . . go to www.tiewraps.com and order one today.

The new gauge cluster with the Autometer Ultra Lite II gauges looks great in the Dart!

Tip: We used a blue LED in the cluster for the high beam indicator. This LED is too bright when on and we suggest using a different color.

In closing, I feel that it is important to point out that the ALL of the wiring and connectors were replaced in Joe's Dart. We did NOT butt connect any of the new wiring to any of the old wiring as we feel that if you are rewiring a vehicle, it should be from point "A" to point "B". Why rewire your vehicle if you plan to have connections that could fail?

Also worth noting is that if you plan on doing this yourself, make the investment and purchase or rent the proper tools to make proper crimps.

Thank you for checking out this project. We appreciate your support and hope to hear from you soon.