Where do you get cloth wrapped wire?

[1940_dodge]

Is there a specific website/store that you go to to buy it, or do you just use modern wire?

[plyroadking]

Sacramento Vintage Ford, but don't tell them its for a Plymouth, their wire "only works on Fords"

[Don Coatney]

If your objective is originality suggest you Google cloth covered wire. If you do not care about originality most any good auto parts store will sell automotive rated wire. If you want an entire harness  there are several supply houses.

[TodFitch]

I believe that the vendors that sell wiring harnesses for vintage cars also sell the wire and terminals separately. Rhode Island Wiring, Harnesses Unlimited, and YnZ's would be the first few places I'd check.

[RobertKB]

I believe that the vendors that sell wiring harnesses for vintage cars also sell the wire and terminals separately. Rhode Island Wiring, Harnesses Unlimited, and YnZ's would be the first few places I'd check.

 

Ditto.

[DonaldSmith]

I got some from magnetoparts.com, just enough for where the wire shows.  I still haven't put it all in.  It's somewhere on my do-do list.  

[fordkustom]

be prepared for a bit of sticker shock when looking for cloth wire sets

[casper50]

ebay

[MarcDeSoto]

If you do buy a complete wiring harness from some place like Y & Z's, make sure you save your original harness.  you need your original because the new one will come with some parts that are not like the original.  For example, the transmission wiring harness did not come with the unique rubber cup covers that the cover the terminals on the transmission housing.  yes, a harness is expensive.   I bought mine back in 1984 and am just getting ready to install it now!  It still looks new in the box.  As I pulled the wires out of the box, I saw that a complete wiring harness is really a bunch of smaller harnesses that are not all connected.  For example, there are the headlight harnesses, the transmission harness, if you have the semi-auto trans, the tail light harness, etc.  I don't remember what I paid back in 1984 for my DeSoto harness from Egge, but I think was around $400, but now it would be closer to $1500. 

[desoto1939]

Like MarcDesoto stated check the suppliers that your are thinking about doing business with. Ask how many they have done yfor your car, do they have the pattern already done for the car, willthey need you existing Wire harnes to make the pattern.

Some harnesess were wraped is a cloth loom that has strickers inthe loom and then some willcome with a cloth covered tape.  Do the terminal ends have the rubber cover installed like the factory.  For a mopar car or truck the various wires would have stickers onthe cloth covering and do they have the correct solid color and the appropriate striker collor.

 

Example  for Mopar they had a single, and double sticker.  The stricker is like a dash in the cloth cover and the single stricker was a 16 gage wire 2 stickers 14 gage.

 

So the other question to ask is if they can make the look in a higher guage wire like 14 gage but have the correct stiker onthe wire

 

I have delt with Rhode Island wire and they are good and have good quality work. Here is an example I had the original wire harnes inmy 39 desoto that had the outside wire loom in black with a blue sticker.  There original outside loom did not have the stricker inthe blue. I saw them at Hershey one year and shoed them the original wire  and then they chnaged their looms to be correct.  Basically they will build a harness from soneones example and the example could be so old that things had changed over the years, but they are always willing to get it correct.  Yes the harness are not cheap but if you are going for the correct look then this is what can be done. You do not have to buy the complete car harness but can purchase the individual sections if the are made in that fashion such as headlight, interior, engine etc.

 

If you have a pre 1940 car some of the builder do not carry the headlight sockets. Don Axlerod up in MAss has the correct 2330 and 2331 headlight sockets for the cars and trucks that used the prefocused headlight bulbs.  

 

Rich Hartung

Desoto1939@aol.com

[hkestes41]

Try Brillman https://www.brillman.com/ they have all kinds of cloth braided wires from hook-up, to battery cables to spark plug wires and the associated terminals. They also have a lot of other wiring accessories.

[1940_dodge]

Thanks for the company lists!