SO, to start off I have a '65 200cid 6 cyl coup with a 3 speed. Pretty much stock (or stock appearing as far as I'm aware, and I haven't done much of it except keep it running and minor restorations - big thanks to this forum!).
I'm pretty much a newbie when it comes to car knowledge, so bare with me (but I am eager to learn)!
ANYHOW, like many folks I want to ditch the points and get a Pertronix Ignitor hooked up - eventually I'd like to upgrade to a DSII or DUI dizzy, but I'm saving that for the future, if/when I upgrade the carb, etc. I've cruised the internet a fair amount and know that I'm supposed to bypass the pink resistor wire with a wire that goes to the Pertronix unit (or also to the coil, if I upgrade the coil, which I may also do) to get 12v. And I know, the proper way to do this is to splice off the green/red wire coming from the ignition switch before it turns into the pink wire and feed it through the fire wall to wherever it needs to go (either the unit or the unit/coil).
That's all great and groovy in theory. I get it. However, when I look at my car, the whole thing turns into a nightmare! and my brain starts to swim. I know there's been a ton of info posted on this, but I've been searching for quite a while now, and can't find quite the info I'm looking for. Here's what I'm seeing:
On the engine side - Going to the coil, from the wiring harness, its NOT a pink wire. Its a red wire with a grey stripe (or so it appears). I go back to the firewall to look for the pink wire, still no pink wire (but there is that red wire with the grey stripe). Also, at the firewall, I was expecting to see a grommet with wires coming through (per diagrams I have seen) however, i have several wires going into a plug connector (sorry, I know that's not the right term but hopefully its descriptive enough) that's mounted to the firewall, and I assume there's the other side of that plug on the other side of the firewall. So my question for this part is... is that red/grey stripe wire correct? It looks as though its been there all along, but again, I don't know much of the car's history before it got to me. Does the pink wire not run all the way to the coil? Diagrams I have seen lead me to believe that the pink wire is supposed to go all the way to the coil.
On the other side of the firewall - TOTAL MESS, if i look under the dash, the wiring is insane. A few things going on here, (ok I guess I have to take back my stock claim) there's an after market tape deck that was put in probably in the 80's, with some questionable wiring. I also do know that there was once a rally-pac in this car (my father-in-law actually bought the car to get the rally-pac for his wife's 64.5, and in turn sold the car to me, sans rally-pac), which was probably less than gracefully removed, and then there's just a crazy mess of wiring which I can't totally make sense of. But in the middle of all that confusion, there IS a pink wire. I can't quite see where it goes, however.
All this said (possibly overkill, but maybe there's some additional insight to be had with all this information), I'm figuring the easiest solution to this whole problem, is to go all the way back to the ignition switch and splice that green/red wire like I'm supposed to. So then my question is this: How the heck do I get to the ignition switch wiring? I was HOPING I could just lay down and get to it under the dash, but that's seeming fairly impossible. The only wiring I can seem to get to this way is the crazy mess I described in the paragraph above. Do I need to remove the instrument panel to get to it? Seems like that would make the "quick 30 minute install" of the pertronix unit actually a much more daunting task!
My follow up question would be, is there another acceptable place, possibly in the engine compartment, to tap that 12v from, where the unit would be getting the power only when the ignition is in the start and on positions (IE - I could see it being a bad thing if the unit is powered when in accessory mode, if I was just listening to the radio (assuming that I replace the worthless piece of junk that's currently where the radio is supposed to go))?
Like I said, I'm a newbie to this stuff, and when it comes to car wiring, I'm even worse, so any insight would be appreciated! Thanks, and shoot, thanks if you even managed to read my whole post!
I'm pretty much a newbie when it comes to car knowledge, so bare with me (but I am eager to learn)!
ANYHOW, like many folks I want to ditch the points and get a Pertronix Ignitor hooked up - eventually I'd like to upgrade to a DSII or DUI dizzy, but I'm saving that for the future, if/when I upgrade the carb, etc. I've cruised the internet a fair amount and know that I'm supposed to bypass the pink resistor wire with a wire that goes to the Pertronix unit (or also to the coil, if I upgrade the coil, which I may also do) to get 12v. And I know, the proper way to do this is to splice off the green/red wire coming from the ignition switch before it turns into the pink wire and feed it through the fire wall to wherever it needs to go (either the unit or the unit/coil).
That's all great and groovy in theory. I get it. However, when I look at my car, the whole thing turns into a nightmare! and my brain starts to swim. I know there's been a ton of info posted on this, but I've been searching for quite a while now, and can't find quite the info I'm looking for. Here's what I'm seeing:
On the engine side - Going to the coil, from the wiring harness, its NOT a pink wire. Its a red wire with a grey stripe (or so it appears). I go back to the firewall to look for the pink wire, still no pink wire (but there is that red wire with the grey stripe). Also, at the firewall, I was expecting to see a grommet with wires coming through (per diagrams I have seen) however, i have several wires going into a plug connector (sorry, I know that's not the right term but hopefully its descriptive enough) that's mounted to the firewall, and I assume there's the other side of that plug on the other side of the firewall. So my question for this part is... is that red/grey stripe wire correct? It looks as though its been there all along, but again, I don't know much of the car's history before it got to me. Does the pink wire not run all the way to the coil? Diagrams I have seen lead me to believe that the pink wire is supposed to go all the way to the coil.
On the other side of the firewall - TOTAL MESS, if i look under the dash, the wiring is insane. A few things going on here, (ok I guess I have to take back my stock claim) there's an after market tape deck that was put in probably in the 80's, with some questionable wiring. I also do know that there was once a rally-pac in this car (my father-in-law actually bought the car to get the rally-pac for his wife's 64.5, and in turn sold the car to me, sans rally-pac), which was probably less than gracefully removed, and then there's just a crazy mess of wiring which I can't totally make sense of. But in the middle of all that confusion, there IS a pink wire. I can't quite see where it goes, however.
All this said (possibly overkill, but maybe there's some additional insight to be had with all this information), I'm figuring the easiest solution to this whole problem, is to go all the way back to the ignition switch and splice that green/red wire like I'm supposed to. So then my question is this: How the heck do I get to the ignition switch wiring? I was HOPING I could just lay down and get to it under the dash, but that's seeming fairly impossible. The only wiring I can seem to get to this way is the crazy mess I described in the paragraph above. Do I need to remove the instrument panel to get to it? Seems like that would make the "quick 30 minute install" of the pertronix unit actually a much more daunting task!
My follow up question would be, is there another acceptable place, possibly in the engine compartment, to tap that 12v from, where the unit would be getting the power only when the ignition is in the start and on positions (IE - I could see it being a bad thing if the unit is powered when in accessory mode, if I was just listening to the radio (assuming that I replace the worthless piece of junk that's currently where the radio is supposed to go))?
Like I said, I'm a newbie to this stuff, and when it comes to car wiring, I'm even worse, so any insight would be appreciated! Thanks, and shoot, thanks if you even managed to read my whole post!