Aircooled VW South Africa

I'm trying to get the old loom out of where it runs through the a-pillar through to the engine compartment. It's hard and inflexible.

Any tips on how to get it out apart from brute strength and ignorance?

Let the car stand in the sun for a few hours, the rubber and plastic sleeving will become soft, and easier to work with. I am however convinced that the Factory put the lugs on the loom after they pulled it through... so it will be difficult to take it out complete.

You just have to pull it out. Feed the connectors into the holes in the body one by one and it should pull through without too much difficulty.

The problem is that some of the later Beetles have a test socket (white square plastic thingy) as part of the harness - it is too big to go through the hole

Pine wrote:The problem is that some of the later Beetles have a test socket (white square plastic thingy) as part of the harness - it is too big to go through the hole

I would just cut that off. If you really want to preserve it, you can remove each of the individual connectors in the test socket (after tagging them all!) by using a probe to bend the barb that holds them in place as you gently pull the cable.

Before getting it out!!!

Remember to tie a peace of string to the end of the loom.

Make sure the string is long enough to travel the distance through the channels (twice the length of the car should do just fine) and, that it is strong enough to deal with quite a lot of tension.
Because you'll be yanking on it hard, repeatedly, until it comes... through the other end. <---- If someone doesn't comment about that I'd sentence I'd be very surprised

When you have the loom pulled through, you can untie the rope and it will be there for you to use when you want to pull the new loom through the channels.
That is basically the reverse, you'll tie the loom to the string/rope and pull on the rope to get the loom through.

Good luck and have fun.

davetapson wrote:I'm trying to get the old loom out of where it runs through the a-pillar through to the engine compartment. It's hard and inflexible.

Any tips on how to get it out apart from brute strength and ignorance?

This is confusing... Firstly the A-pillar is the one that holds the windscreen in place.. And the C-pillar is the one at the rear... The B-pillar is the one in the middle of the car...

So where are you having problems? A or C pillar?

The Devil is in the details....

Excellent suggestion Dirk!

Vader, the wiring harness is removed and installed through a hole in the heater channel at the base of the LH A-pillar.

The one on the floor below the door hinge?

Correct.

Ahhh ok now I know where your talking about.... That bit about the Apillar and the engine didn't make sense...

The loom runs from inside the bonnet, up through the A-Pillar, along the cavity on the inside of the roof, past the interior light, and out into the engine compartment just near the top corner of the boot lid.

So A-Pillar ain't got nothing to do with the engine compartment apart from the fact that there is an immovable loom connecting the two. Difficult to move the car into the sun, it's got no running gear.

I'm very happy to take it out in pieces - it's just that the zig zag from bonnet through A-pillar up into the head lining tube means you can't pull the damn thing out - well, not easily anyway.

Those old beetles can be a pain but Im with pine on the heat bit. as the engine loom is usually the wors (most brittle) i would remove it to the rear of the car with someoune pulling (gently and another pushibg intil it dissapears up the pillar i also wrap the exposed ends of the harness wit about 3 layers of insulation tape covering all the wires and I als tie a piece of string to the furthest end this sting or wire i leave inside the body until it is time to remplace. As Pine have said before get another old loom and splice the correct colours away from the brittle ends and re cover with new shrink sleeve this way the brittle ends are completely removed
Armand

I was just going to buy an new loom - the engine end of this one may be brittle, but it's also been so hacked about that I'd have to redo that side anyway.

Is it not worth replacing?

Older beetles have their wiring harnesses passing through the roof instead of next to the heater channels.

If your rooflining is out, it should be easy. Try hooking the harness from inside with a bent piece of wire or coathanger.

At the rear inside the "C pillar", there may be soundproofing material that needs to be pulled out to make space, otherwise loom may be stuck there.

If rooflining is out, it's easy to pull in new wires. First through the "C" pillar into the roof, then from the roof through the "A" pillar, or vice versa. If making up a new loom, rather pass the loom through the righthand pillars, best for righthand drive cars as wires will be shorter.