headliner-fishing

[booyaballer]

I'm going to replace the dome light wiring in my 70 Challenger however; my headliner is already installed. Can anyone suggest an easy way to fish the new wiring through without undoing or minimally undoing the headliner?

Thanks!

 

[mrmopar340]

I'm going to replace the dome light wiring in my 70 Challenger however; my headliner is already installed. Can anyone suggest an easy way to fish the new wiring through without undoing or minimally undoing the headliner?

Thanks!

Pull the cover off and get to the wiring underneath. Then you can tie or splice the new wire in from that side and gently use it to pull your new wire in place. I used butt connectors in mine and slow worked it through the headliner.

 

[Ronbo73]

Why are you replacing the dome light wiring? If the wiring was installed properly, the wires will be held in place by the flexible wire holders along the roof bow that the light housing screws into. The wiring may not come out easily. Also if the wiring is not held in place it will be touching your headliner and you will most likely see it. Unless you have a one piece hard headliner not a 4 or 5 bow material headliner.

 

[booyaballer]

it's definitely not a hard headliner. my AAW kit comes with new dome light wiring so might as well change it. I don't suspect that particular wire is bad though some dash wiring was definitely frankensteined.

More than anything, I don't want to create another project by undoing too much of the liner to access the wire.

 

[pschlosser]

if your headliner is vintage, it may be brittle and tear easily. even so, you may be able to detach enough of it to expose the wiring harness. Ronbo73 is correct, fishing any wires over to the dome light will likely be in contact with the headliner and be visible.

 

[pschlosser]

the existing wiring harness may be brittle. the insulation gets dried out, and handling can cause cracking and breakage. if you're set on replacing the wires, you may need to detach most of the driver size of the headliner to expose the existing wiring routing over to the sail panel.

 

[MILOJ]

Use fishing wire

Fishing wire thru headliner

forum.ih8mud.com

 

[Ronbo73]

I reused as much original wiring, that was still good, when I replaced my harness with one from Painless. The dome light harness runs down the C-pillar on the drivers side and plugs into the rear harness in the trunk. At least in my 73 Barracuda.
If the wire is not brittle, I would not replace it. Just run the new harness to the dome light plug and terminate there. I think, as you rewire your car, you may see that the AAW harness does not have everything that your original harness has. Probably 85% will be new and 15% original, if useable, will be reused.
I reused as many plugs as possible, removed the old wires from them and added the new.