[buddy in texas]

Can anyone help me find a Factory Assembly Manual for a 65 GTO? This is what I have been told I needed by an American Auto Wire tech support guy to complete my under dash installation of the fuse block and dash harness. Or at least help me identify the wiring terminals. Any help would be greatly appreciated. I would appreciate any input by anyone who has completed under dash wiring with an OEM harness.

Some of what I am finding is that there are at least 3 extra lighting sockets that I won’t use on my GTO. What do you do with them? Cut them off and tape them? Or what? Two are for idiot lights and the other is an emergency brake indicator on a Tempest/Lemans. I am also finding duplicate oil press. and water temp connectors. One goes through the bulkhead connector, another does not. I’m confused. All of these harnesses I was told I needed for my application by the manufacturer.

So, I am told I need a Factory Assembly Manual for a 65 GTO to help me complete the wiring.

[goatman65]

Good luck finding a manual,they are hard to find. Sounds Like you just need a wiring diagram to identify the wires by colors. Extra wires,plugs,etc that won't be used were folded back and taped to the harness by the factory.

Kinda sounds like you have the main harness and the rallye gauge harness.

[Option 382]

Amazon sells the chasis and body shop manuals for the 65. I would think what your looking for would be in one of those books.

[65Mark]

Here is a link to the wiring diagram...

http://pontiacwiring.0catch.com/

Just click on your year car

[buddy in texas]

Originally Posted by goatman65

Good luck finding a manual,they are hard to find. Sounds Like you just need a wiring diagram to identify the wires by colors. Extra wires,plugs,etc that won't be used were folded back and taped to the harness by the factory.

Kinda sounds like you have the main harness and the rallye gauge harness.

Yes, that is what I have, main harness and rallye gauge harness. Thanks for your info. It is kinda what I thought.

[buddy in texas]

Originally Posted by 65Mark

Here is a link to the wiring diagram...

http://pontiacwiring.0catch.com/

Just click on your year car

Thanks, I have those diagrams.

[buddy in texas]

Originally Posted by Option 382

Amazon sells the chasis and body shop manuals for the 65. I would think what your looking for would be in one of those books.

Thanks, but from what I understand those won't help me. I've been researching and talking about this for some time.

[Keith Seymore]

I am in general agreement with what has been posted so far, but would like to add some color commentary and then give you my opinion -

First, just to clarify the naming convention and make sure we are talking about the same thing:

Assembly Manuals, also called "PADs" (Product Assembly Documents) or "PDMs" (Product Description Manuals) are the directions that the assemby line workers used to put the cars together, just like a giant model car kit. They look like this:





I mention this to distinguish them from Service Manuals or Repair Manuals, which we are generally more familiar with, and which detail the breakdown of the assembly components.

Assembly Manuals are often available today to collectors by model type. I've seen F Car manuals and Light Truck manuals, as well as later model year A car (including GTO). This is really amazing considering we used to throw them away when we were done with them at the end of a model year.

Unfortunately, we ('64/'65 GTO enthusiasts) do not think Assembly Manuals for '64-'65 GTO are available publicly. I am aware of one set here locally, locked away in a bedroom and not being made available for viewing. That's a different story for a different day.

Secondly - I'd like to discuss wire harness content briefly. Generally, for production line use harnesses are proliferated based on content. This is based on piece cost considerations (harnesses with fewer wires and connectors are cheaper to produce, which adds up over high production volumes) and because of durability concerns (open connectors allow water ingress which causes corrosion and subsequent electrical problems). Taping of extra wires back is normally avoided but evaluated on a case-by-case basis and might be done when a specific program team is willing to accept the risks to avoid part proliferation at the plant.

Service parts are often "overreleased", meaning all of the content is included in one harness part number to avoid proliferation and stocking of multiple parts. It sounds like that's what the aftermarket manufacturer of your harness did in this case (so they can make and offer one harness to cover a multitude of usages).

I apologize for all this detail, especially if I am telling you something you already know, but I say all this to say:

a) The assembly manuals you are looking for are not available

and

b) I don't think they will help you anyway.

Assembly manuals do not show that level of detail (like wire harness pinouts). I think you need the appropriate service manual - or - better yet - I think you need to get that detail from your specific wire harness manufacturer.

Hope that helps -

K

[buddy in texas]

Thank you for your reply. I actually agree with everything you said. And yes the harness mfrs do put all connectors on one harness to eliminate the need to stock multiples.

[John V.]

Were you missing the Original Equipment wire harness for your car? If you had that it might at least be possible to match the replacement harness to the original harness to see if it is the same or not.

I may be the only one on the planet that tries to distinguish between O.E. (something that is Original Equipment in a car) and O.E.M. which is an Original Equipment Manufacturer. An O.E.M. is simply a company that supplies stuff that is used as original equipment in the car. The O.E.M. may and probably does supply aftermarket components that may or may not be "just like" the O.E. stuff. Okay, just needed to get that off my chest. Just wasn't sure what you meant by using an OEM harness in your first post. Unless maybe that is a brand name somebody is marketing their harnesses under? (which is kinda confusing to me anyway).

To add to what Keith outlined, it may have been just a little different back in '64/'65.

I don't have documentation for the '65 but pretty sure it was very similar to how it was done for '64.

There were only a handful of choices for the IP harness.

The basic '64 choices for the Instrument Panel Wire Assembly were:

Base content (ie. 6 cyl, no option car) - used Black Tape & Black Connector
V8 option including GTO but NOT with A/C - used Black Tape & Tan Connector
6 cyl with A/C - used Gray Tape & Black Connector
V8 including GTO with A/C - used Gray Tape & Tan Connector

The "connector" refers to the passenger compartment side of the fuse block.

The Main Engine wiring on the firewall side also had these (4) application choices, same tape & connector colors matched to the IP wiring side.

The ONLY variant aside from the different wiring used for a 6 cyl had to do with the A/C option.

All other connectors were provided.

The reason was, even if you didn't factory order certain options, they were readily available as a Dealer Accessory Package.

For example, maybe you wanted to add the Electric Clock. It was easy to do, the Clock was installed and the connector plugged into the available connector that was same one as would have been used if the Clock was installed at the factory.

IP Courtesy Lamp, same deal. And so on.

Now I'll throw in the complication.

There were additional IP Wire Assembly choices if the Console was ordered. This was NOT offered as a Dealer Accessory Package (you could buy the service parts and add one, put it wasn't as simple as adding and plugging in the Dealer Accessory Package Clock).

If the Console was ordered, there were different harness choices used if the car ALSO had auto trans. This presumably because of the wiring needed for the shift indicator light.

For Console equipped cars then, there were (4) additional IP Wire Assembly choices for the auto trans cars (6 or V8, with or without A/C). Same tape and connector colors as the non-Console colors and the Main Engine Wire Harness was not affected by the Console.

AFAIK, the man trans Console equipped cars did not require a different IP Wire harness, since I believe the wiring to the Console light in the man trans Console connected to a connector provided in all of the IP Wire harness choices, no need for a special IP Wire harness in that case.

Body Wiring was done much the same. You got the same body wiring harness whether you ordered the trunk light or not. The Trunk Light was available as a Dealer Accessory Package and simply plugged into the same connector that was used to plug it in if the factory had installed it.

Point I'm making, connectors WERE provided in the IP Wire Harness to facilitate any option that was offered as a Dealer Accessory Package. If your car never got that option, factory or dealer installed, that connector just went unused.

Now one variant that you are probably up against for the '65 is the Rally Gauge option (I only wish that option had been offered for '64).

My guess is, PMD did have specific wire harnesses for this option.

So the idiot light wiring & sockets that you have in your harness might NOT have been part of the original wire harness intended for a car with the Rally Gauge option.

You might find the Rally Gauge specific wiring arrangement identified in the '65 Shop Manual to see how it differs from the standard V8 IP wire harness and figure it out from there.

Presumably those extra wires terminate somewhere. Since you wouldn't have a sender feeding them, I would think they are harmless, and maybe you can disconnect them at the connector?

The Brake Lamp connector in all likelihood was always there. The factory option brake lamp was part of the speedometer (I'm not sure if it was any different with the Rally Gauge speedo?).

But you could get a Dealer Accessory Package Brake Lamp that I suspect plugged into the same connector. It mounted at the bottom of the dash to provide a warning lamp to show your e-brake was on, same functionality as the factory option, just a little awkward looking as compared to having the lamp in the speedo face. So I would think you could leave that connector in place.

Maybe somebody with the Rally Gauges will have a better idea of the correct harness set-up.

Seems to me, plenty of guys have converted to the Rally Gauge set-up.

Maybe start a new thread asking for advice from anybody that added Rally Gauges to a '65 that originally had standard gauges?

[goatman65]

I'm sure this is 'not' the way to do it but, 30 yrs when i got my 65 GTO it had the standard idiot light dash/wiring and console/wiring.
I bought a rallye dash to install.Back then info for these cars wasn't as easy to find as today with repro everything and the internet.
So what i did was cut the bulb sockets off for the oil,water temp,crimped connectors to the wires and after tracing the wires to see where they went,I added the correct sending units and the gauges have worked fine since. I did not add a rally dash harness as these cars were originally equipped.
I'm just saying that by using a test light or volt meter, the wiring diagram and it shouldn't be very hard to figure out which wire goes where. But beware, some of the wires in your new harness might not be the same as the factory used.

I have my dash out right now so maybe i can help with any more questions.

[unclescratch]

That is what I did also. My (owner installed Ralley gauges) work fine.