Electrical and Interior Restoration - Part 2

With the floors fixed and ready to go attention was turned back to the wiring.  We decided to go with an American Autowire 13 Circuit kit.  I have used several different wiring harnesses in the past as the base for a rewire.  For the money the American Autowire kit is OK, but it doesn't compare to a Painless kit in terms of part and wire quality.  Both take a lot of work to install well!

I wanted this installation to be very easy to service so a good bit of thought went into the wire routing.  New vintage style locking connectors were used in the interior, and Deutsch DTM series were used in the engine bay and underneath the car. 

I started with the dash which received its own sub harness, separate from the HVAC and steering column.  Each gauge also received a small sub harness and connector to allow for easy removal without requiring nuts and ring terminals to be disconnected.  Gauges are Autometer UltraLites, 5" for the speedo and tach, 2 5/8" for the center gauges.  The OE gauge housing were used in the center gauges with the rear sections cut out,  this make for an easy installation using the factory hardware.  Brackets were fabricated for the tachometer and speedometer and tack welded to the dash frame.  The dash was given final touch with Duplicolor vinyl die giving it a new look. 

The car already had a Gen III vintage air kit although installed poorly.  New brackets were fabricated to mount it.  One great thing about the vintage air kit is the updated controls interface which allows for the removal of Datsun cable controls.  A carbon plate was made to fit in the dash center panel the the Vintage Air dash panel was installed.  Indicators were also added to this panel using lights from a Vapor Motorcycle dash.

The fuse panel was installed on the side of the drivers footwell and harnesses were run to the engine bay, tail lights, and combination switch / HVAC system.  Unfortunately I don't have too many pictures of the harness installed,  I need to snap a few of the finish install to update this, here a couple shot during the build:

A few other modification were made during the wiring installation including SPAL power windows, Hella Horns, and a refurbish of the windshield wiper gear box. The windshield wipers often are almost unusable in this cars for solidified grease in the gear boxes, a quick cleanup and they are much improved.    Cooling the V8 had also proved to be challenging in traffic so a SPAL 16" high performance fan was installed with the a shroud.  

With the wiring complete the interior was re-installed.  Most of the interior was in good condition but new vinyl was installed on the transmission tunnel and strut towers.  Eventually the seats will be swapped out for more modern and supportive units but they look great for now!