When I bought my 67 Camaro, the wiper motor was disconnected. I have spend so much time working on other parts of the car I finally getting to the wipers. I hook the wiper motor up and found it has no power to it.
Got power on both sides of the fuss but no power to the wiper switch, any ideas? Is there a relay somewhere? Is the yellow wire the hot lead to the switch?

 

did you check the fuses

 

Of course I did. I pull them, check them with my ohm meter, than clean the contacts, reinstall them. Everything looks good. The only thing I have not done, is get into the canon plug, threw the fire wall. That is a pain in the ***.

 

Well I just had enough, fighting with the wipers not working, so I run all new color matching wires from the wiper switch & power, to the wiper motor. Now everything works. Had to many bad connection inside the car.

This is not the first time, that I had to run new wire.

The guys at the classic car club said not to worry about it. They said your not supposed to drive your classic car in the rain. (Really)

67C

 

Sounds like you are just putting off your harness replacement. All the wires in the car are the same age so if you need to replace all the wires in the wipers might as well assume all the wires in the car will need it soon. The wires will get so brittle that just touching the harness will break more wires then you are trying to fix. The main connector going through the firewall will literally fall apart.

 

Gorn speaks truth. 50-year-old insulation is ungood in general. Speaking as an electrical-guy, I would say that technically, it sucks DD's. Replacing all wire is not a simple job, but well worth the result. That was an automatic check-off on RIcky Camaro's restoration. We also replaced every light in the car with LED's. Our shop found some source for LED's that plug right into existing receptacles, even in the dash. Things to think about. And YAY for LED headlights!!!

Oh, and Ricky runs in the rain! Living in the Pacific Northwest, on what we call the 'wet side' (west of the Cascades), if we didn't run in the rain, we would not run nearly as much. We say, that's why god invented windshield wipers and ceramic coating.

 

Yeah, I get it, But I have worked on cars that were less than 5 years old with the same problem. And the rest of the wiring on this car, looks and works good. Time will tell.
I also have replace all the interior and dash lamp with Led, and does it make a difference.
Anyway, what do you say to a person like my neighbor who has an all original 68 Camaro, with 60,000 miles on it, and likes to drive it. Do you change the wiring on it?

 

I'd probably want to replace it all,that car is as old or older than most model T Fords were when the Camaro was new.

 

Looking in the mirror, I can tell you that time is not kind, to my generation and to old insulation. It can look beautiful but actually be brittle. So, my advice to your neighbor is: carry a good fire extinguisher, easily accessible, and think about putting in a battery disconnect, preferably push-button activated, installed between battery negative terminal and frame or engine block (wherever it terminates). Plus, the battery disconnect makes it a lot harder for some predator to hot-wire his car. Hard to make a distributor distiribute spark when there is no battery-to-battery return path.

 

I worked as a GM warranty repair tech back in the 80's The only time I ever had to replace a wiring harness is due to critters and once because of a moron that thought removing the "emission crap" would make his 1987 IROC faster. Also modern harnesses are more effected by slight resistances so we are talking bad crimps on the connectors not plastic insulation failure you would see with age. I did have to replace a wiring harness for the dealerships owner in his 1965 Chevelle. It came in with a head light not working. Every time I pulled the harness out of it cover another wire would break. Once I got to about 11 slices I called the owner. That would have been in 1986.

These 60's cars that were built to last 5-8 years, They only had a 12 month 12,000 mile warranty. A LOT of these cars never saw 100k before they where scraped. Yes environment plays a part in how your wiring holds up but 10 times the engineers requirement? in the end you are still sitting along side the road in your classic car broke down because of wiring at some point, That sounds bad but not as bad as a few sparks in the dash with that old dried out glove box under there. Burning down your classic would suck way more then what your average tow truck grunt would do to your ride.

If you take on the job yourself just take a lot of pictures and grab as many images off the net of harness routings. If you go on the wrong side of a bracket you may find you run out of length at the very end, now you back tracking the harness. In school they never even talked about wiring harness replacement. It more of a function of remembering how you took it off and the patience of putting it back the same way.