s13 body harness replacent/repair ?s
 

i have a 89 coupe that im in the middle of swapping and i want to make sure i have no more electrical problems...the previous owner raped the body harness. the planned is to just replace the front section fender to fender. picked up a clean one from a 89 hatch at pick n pull and now that im comparing the two they seem to be a lil different. the new one seems to have less wires that run under the passenger fender well.

so for those with experience replacing or repairing body harnesses...
1. how tedious is swapping a body harness?
2. can u replace portions instead of the whole thing? like is there plugs under the dash that you can undo in order to just swap the engine bay portion instead of the whole car?
3. if u can do #2 are the hatch and coupe compatible?...if so does it vary SOHC to DOHC?
4. painless wiring kit...has anyone done it???

The one with less wiring on the passenger side is either from a manual or doesn't have cruise. The passenger side portion is primarily auto and cruise wiring. You should be fine with just swapping it as is. The only thing you'll need is the wiper motor.

thanks for reply ^^^ anyone else have anything else to ad? im gunna check it out a lil more tomorrow

1. There are two body harness

2. sohc and dohc harness are not interchangeable

3. Hatch and coupe harness are not identical, but are very similar, and have all the same connectors in the engine bay and under the dash.

4. I have never swapped the body harness, mainly for the fact that it is verrryyyy tedious work. and not fun at all. it will take you a while. You must pull off just about every interior body panel, including your dash.

5. I would not recommend a Painless for a street car.

Any more questions, let me know

thanks mr. very helpful reply :-)

1. First time it took me a couple hours. Second, third, fourth, and fifth time was a breeze. LOL. (I've had a lot of electrical problems)

2. There is 2 sections to the body harness. One that's on the inside of the car, under the dash, a in the trunk, and the other half is in the engine bay. They can be separated under the dash near the kick panel.

3. Same as above, cannot mix the harnesses.

4. Never done it.

Hope that helped

See above. You're wrong.

The underhood harness unplugs at the SMJ inside and can be completely taken out separately from the rest of the harness.

my car wouldnt crank because of a bad body harness, swapped in another and it was sexy time.

1. not that tedious, just be patient. 1.5 hour job

2. can't do portions.. it goes from driver pass. side fuse box... to driver side and thru firewall under the steering wheel. and stops.

3. interchangeable I believe

4. not me... don't know if its worth it

which kick pannel? driver side?

thanks guys, very mature & thought out answers(dont see that often on here :-). i guess im gunna have to take my dash out and get started.

Yes. The SMJ is located above the fusebox on nearly all Nissan vehicles.

SMJ? sorry for the noob question.

kaking you dont have to remove your dash... but atleast the cluster and panel directly below the steering wheel.

Super Mulitple Junction. Nissan's term for a very large plug. It's what connects major harnesses to each other. S14s have two since the dash, sub, and tail harness are all separate pieces. S13s just have one, the dash and body harness is all one piece while the underhood section is separate. It's right above the fusebox, big white plug. Can't miss it.

oooooo yaaaa, I have heard that term used by nissan, but it was always spelled out in the FSM.

im gonna go unplug mine just for fun! lol

involved questions, bring out the real enthusiast :eek3d:

Oh thanks that'll save some time. theres no clips that i need to get to under that dash that will cause problems gettin the harness out?

So far I'm doing something similar.just waiting to finish painting the inside to put my Entire harness in:

I bought a 93 SE coupe - It was all Fucked up (wrecked in 3 spots) and the owner didn't tell me - So I then got a 90 Base hatch w/ No wiring what-so-ever and Now I'm swapping that Entire harness over to the Hatch.
Crushed the Coupe after Gutting it.

ALL I'm using in the rear (harness) of the car is the Fuel pump wiring and exteneded the coupe taillight wiring because the hatch is a Tab bit longer.
Ditched the entire hatch harness that runs through the Top/roof.
:Got rid of the 3rd brake light (shaved) and Both rear marker lights on the rear 1/4's.

I didn't really remove wires MAINLY to ensure everything will still work - just Tucked them into the harness and taped them up.

what where you able to get rid of? there are so many wires in my harness, i want them gone (its a track car) so i really dont want to run a bunch of bs wires. all i need is for the motor to run, and headlights, brake lights, turn signals.

there is a plug that goes from the body harness... up around the steering shaft, over a bar on the tubular frame, and down to the ignition switch/turn signal switch area, this is probably the toughest one...

but you can get to it, simply by removing the cluster, and widdling it out...

:)

God, theres so much wiring that I could remove from my car. I kinda wish it wasn't my daily so that I could jump into it head on and eliminate ALL of the "luxuries".

I kinda wanna redo my whole harness anyway. My car was originally sohc/auto, and now it's dohc/5speed, but I didn't use a dohc body harness, so I can't use the Consult port for Nistune and whatnot... Bummer. I'd like to rewire it in a way that its wired like a factory dohc/5speed car, but without the cruise control and A/C, which I got rid of. Sooo much work for so little gain, but it'd be nice to do it anyway. lol

You might wanna keep your wipers, too. They're night to have when it starts raining at the track.

Well thats just it.Mines a track car too but I didn't want to spend my entire life looking for something that i did wrong if I removed a bunch of stuff.Thats a headache so I left it alone.

So I just tucked them into the harness and taped them up so I KNEW the car would start and everything would work.I'd rather Illiminate a Possible Gremlin.
car it came out of everythinb worked so I know it will work when I put it in.

Car It was in was SE (93 auto DOHC-to-SR AUTO-to-5spd) going in a gutted 90 hatch.
Will keep consult and everything else.