Butcher and the Butts!!

Ok guys (and Gals). I have for the first time pulled my entire dash out of my 72 to do some work on the AC duct work and to replace the AC harness. While I was in there. I found where a previous owner butchered a few wires and put in butt splices. For the life of me I can't figure out why. Maybe some of you can shed some light as to why.

The main wire I am concered about is the Purple Wire with the White strip that runs from the Neutral Safety switch runs through the main harness and plugs into the connector on the streering column. For some reason the wire was snipped at the switch and at the connector on the column. Then they ran a single wire between the connector and the switch by-passing the wire in harness. Why would they have done that. The rest of the main harness is perfect. Still wrapped from the factory. They didn't disable anything just created a mess.

I'm going to rest the wire in the harness for continuity. If its good then I'm going to fix it the right way by soldering it and and using shrink tube.

The other wires that were cut and butt spliced have me confuesed as well. The cigarette lighter wire was cut and spliced. The console light was cut and spliced and there was one other connector with three wires.

I hate butt Splices .

Also do you think it would be possible to use wire snake/lube to pull a new wire through the old harness and just replace the whole wire if its bad? I may try this if it works great if not I'll just run a new wire along the existing harness with zip ties to hold it in place.

BTW. Has everyone noticed that the longer you work on your vette the more it tends to get dissassembled. You should see the interior. There are parts everyone that I have taken out. Not a hard project, just time consuming. I was also totally dismayed by the lack of attention by GM when it came to routing wires and keeping everything neat and tidy. They had wires all twisted and wrapped un in each other. I'll have it all straighed out before it all goes back in.

He may have bypassed the neutral safety switch. Who knows. People do some stupid stuff. Perhaps he damaged the harness while doing other work.

I think that same purple wire is connected to the clutch switch, I've seen several of those defeated too! Still doesn't make much sense. I had a '73 that had been "rigged" in this way, the rocket scientist wasn't very neat with the wiring and would come loose every once in a while, and keep the car from starting. Took a while to chase that ghost down!

I've taken work over from many butchers in the past and found that when people don't take their time to look and understand just what it is they are trying to acheive, the wire cutters come out and it all turns into a mess.

I also hate people who bypass stuff that is obviously there for a reason.