Factory Five Roadster Wiring Install - Project Snake Charmer Part: 11

This view of the almost-finished rear wiring shows how neatly the mounting clips hold the harness out of the way of moving drivetrain and suspension parts.

For any external wiring connections that might be in the open elements, it's best to use a weatherproof connection that can be disconnected for component removal later. We used Weathertight connector kits from MSD Ignition, along with the company's Pro Crimp II crimping tool (PN 35051, $77.77) and the proper crimping dies (Weathertight, PN 3509; and Deutsch, PN 3510; $34.43 each). For the taillights, we used three-pin connections (PN 8172, $9.79). Four-pin connectors (PN 8171, $10.89) were needed for other areas such as the fuel pump and fuel-level sender, while single-pin and two-pin connectors (PN 8174, $8.03 and PN 8173, $8.36) were used on the engine, cooling fan, and other areas.

Properly crimped, the Weathertight terminal looks like this. One crimp retains the wire and the second retains the weather seal for the connector. You can probably crimp these terminals with other tools, but the MSD crimper makes both crimps at once for a clean, tight connection. Don't forget to put the weather seal on the wire beforehand.

The finished connector looks like this. You can use the male or female terminals in either half of the connector shell or mix and match to make the wiring connectors "keyed," but make sure you have the terminals fully seated in the connector. MSD also offers a pin-removal tool (PN 8193, $13.53) if you need to disassemble or change the connector-pin arrangement.

Our four-pin connector for the fuel pump and fuel-level sender was wired and connected. These Weathertight connectors from MSD came in handy throughout the project.

For the taillights, we wired the Weathertight connectors so that there was a male and a female on each side of the harness. This will prevent us from connecting the taillights in error later when the body is installed.

We noticed the taillight assemblies had a simple, crimped ground terminal on the back of the light. We presume the rear of the light assembly didn't see dirt or rain in its original application. We simply hit the ground connection with a bit of solder to give some much-needed integrity to the ground connection.

With the rear body wiring wrapped and complete, all that was left before moving on to the rest of the wiring was to secure it to the chassis. We used high-strength tie-wraps to secure the wiring harness to the already-clamped-in-place battery cable, keeping everything tight to the left of the transmission tunnel.

While at first glance our replica will have a stock look to it, we aren't going for 100 percent authenticity. Instead, we want to enjoy the thrill of an open roadster without Lucas electrics, manual brakes, and whatnot. We decided long ago not to use the typical toggle switches on the dash for our various controls.