[njsteve]

Spoke with both M&H and American Autowire today.

American Autowire is working on getting me a replacement harness. They said it is possible that it was put together wrong, without a resistor wire, a few years ago when I originally purchased it. (Luckily I saved the invoice) They seem to be very attentive to customer needs and it looks like they are going to send me a new harness so I can swap it out and return the old one so they can dissect it.

M&H, the makers of the SE breakerless conversion indicated that you should only run the lower voltage (9 volts) to their unit when running and not a full 12 volt load because it will eventually burn out the unit. They agreed that running the ballast resistor is a good thing to do for the time being.

[Formulabruce]

Originally Posted by njsteve

Spoke with both M&H and American Autowire today.

American Autowire is working on getting me a replacement harness. They said it is possible that it was put together wrong, without a resistor wire, a few years ago when I originally purchased it. (Luckily I saved the invoice) They seem to be very attentive to customer needs and it looks like they are going to send me a new harness so I can swap it out and return the old one so they can dissect it.

M&H, the makers of the SE breakerless conversion indicated that you should only run the lower voltage (9 volts) to their unit when running and not a full 12 volt load because it will eventually burn out the unit. They agreed that running the ballast resistor is a good thing to do for the time being.

Hehe, had to know a MOPART would end up on your car, the Trans Am is just TOOOOO Close to them! Watch for the heat from that bad boy!!

[njsteve]

Victory at last!

Got the replacement harness from American Autowire this afternoon. It took more than four hours to pull the old one and put the new one in. It was not a fun time.

The junction to the firewall was a nightmare as it is behind the brake booster. You literally have to pull about six inches of the engine harness into the passenger compartment in order to disconnect it from the inside half of the dash harness. You then have to find something to pry the halves apart while hanging upside-down under the dash. Of course there is no room to tighten the main connection bolt once you get the new engine harness connected to the old dash harness. And in typical fashion, the internal retaining nut inside the main fuse box started spinning, making it just about impossible to pull the two halves together. Not a happy time. Completely shredded my hands and arms doing this.

The starter removal/reinstallation was another fun part of the process. The factory length on the 455HO starter harness section has very little extra play in it as it has to get around the front of the block and underneath the HO exhaust manifolds, unlike the regular Pontiac engines, so you have to hold the 20 pound starter up with one hand while removing/installing the wires with the other hand, while using your third hand to hold the wires in place so they don't move while tightening.

Here's the old harness after I got it removed and before sending it back to American Autowire.

[njsteve]

As we suspected, the harness in the car had regular copper wire instead of resistor wire for the positive coil lead. As you can see the black wire with the pink stripe is just regular copper wire:



The replacement harness had the correct resistor wire. It was actually labeled as resistor wire like the original one I pulled from my toasted factory harness. You could see it was a heavy silver and not copper wire.



Once I got everything reinstalled and hooked up, I started her up. She actually had the correct voltage, in the correct key positions: 9 volts when running! Finally no more frying electricals. Heck, now maybe my tach will even read the correct rpms. (I can always hope).

I gotta hand it to the guys at American Autowire. I don't know many companies these days, that would honor a warranty issue six years after you buy something. My original receipt was dated November 2004 but they honored the warranty nonetheless, and overnighted the new harness, no charge. Now that's the real test of a company - standing behind their product when something like this happens, regardless of the timespan.