wires 41 60 special

[mr41cadillac]

anyone know how the wire runs to the door switches on 41 60 special ? i can see i have some bare spots on the original wires. i dont want to remove the original headliner , whick is still in good shape. thanks john m

[Steve Passmore]

As far as I'm aware permanent power runs to the light unit. Its earth is back to the switch and door switches so whichever is operated the circuit is completed to the light.   As these wires to the light are clipped in place I'm sad to say you cannot thread a new wire through the headlining,  Been there, done that.   The wire passes up the screen pillar and across the roof. I had to remove part of my headlining, to replace the wire.

[Paul Phillips]

John
It depends on which doors you are trying to sort. The front switches are accessible via the kick panels, but you can't replace the wire run to the dome light w/o getting behind the headliner. The rears control the lights in the seat base, so they run up the B pillar then back down again behind the rear door. Seriously behind the headlining. Unless someone has been in there before, the harness will be clipped in place at multiple places, so not really feasible to cut loose and use existing wiring to pull a replacement into place. There are also additional wires that run in the same harness part way for rear lights, trunk lights, fuel sensor, etc. The whole thing is probably brittle, and moving one prt may cause insulation to fall off in a new place somewhere else.

The good news is the majority of this body harness runs on the drivers side. The following  is speculative, as when I went in there on my car, I took it all the way apart, but it may be feasible to remove the tacks for the wire-on and windlace on that side, then remove the tacks for the headliner to get access to the body harness.  If you only take that side loose, you should be able to carefully re-tack & reinstall the headliner, windlace and wire-on after repairing the harness. This will be tedious, there are probably 100+ tacks to carefully R&R.

Suggest you explore carefully and see what you can get to. Be sure to have the wiring diagram from the manual, as it is pretty good as well to indicate where wires are spliced (look for the dots).

Paul

[Steve Passmore]

John

but it may be feasible to remove the tacks for the wire-on and windlace on that side, then remove the tacks for the headliner to get access to the body harness.  If you only take that side loose, you should be able to carefully re-tack & reinstall the headliner, windlace and wire-on after repairing the harness. This will be tedious, there are probably 100+ tacks to carefully R&R.

Paul

What Paul said is all true except I have never had a headlining that would survive this. the mere act of getting these tacks out of decades old headlining and getting your arm up in there to find the wires usually means the end of the cloth.
My headlining was only about 20 years old and the previous restores had not bothered to connect the wires to the dome light. I have been fitting headliners for 30 years and I could not save the cloth after removing 100s of tacks and stretching the cloth beyond re-use to try and get my arm in there plus there is never enough cloth to handle as all surplus is cut right back to the tacks the first time.  It looked really bad after I refitted it and I had to replace the whole thing.