Get your tuck on!

Project "Road Warrior" gets a wire tuck

    Wire tucks have been done to all manor of cars, for years. This is not a groundbreaking task, but after scouring the interwebs, there was not much in the way of helpful write ups to get the job done. Being the opportunist that your humble author is, the time had come to remedy that problem. As documented on our Facebook page a few months ago, I had already completed the driver side tuck, but I wanted to do a more in depth tutorial for the passenger side. So here we go, step by step to getting our tuck on!

Step 1: Jack your car up, and remove the front passenger wheel. 

Step 2: Remove the six small screws, and four push pins that secure the inner fender liner to the car. 

    With the wheel and fender liner removed, now you can move to the engine bay and clear out the area where your air intake resides. The idea is to leave only the wiring harness there, so you have a clean template to work from. On a side note, we have already deleted all of the smog equipment from Project Road Warrior, If you have been meaning to do this, now is a good time. All of the hoses, vacuum lines, and evap solenoids can  be removed, provided your car is smog exempt. 

Step 3: Remove the air intake system from the car, as well as anything else around the fender apron, including the mass air meter bracket. 

Step 4: Free the harnesses from the body, and disconnect all of the connections. You should also unplug the relays that are mounted to the fender apron, directly below where the mass air meter is mounted. Lay the forward harnesses over the radiator core support, and the mass air harness over the intake, simply to make sure you have all of the wiring unhooked.   

   Step 5: Run the two forward harnesses, and alternator harness through the holes directly behind the headlights. Once through, they can be routed into the fender area.  

Step 6: The mass air harness can be run through the oval shaped hole, behind the strut tower. The hole is just barely large enough to use, and the two relay plugs are a very tight fit. Just take your time, everything will fit without making the hole larger. Send the two relay bulkhead connectors through the hole first, followed by the MAF plug.  

Step 7: Lengthen the section on the starter harness that comes up by the sway bar mount. This harness will run through the splash shield under the frame rail, then up into the inner fender. 

Step 8: Plug all of your wiring back together, and run your alternator wiring back to the engine bay. Take a few heavy duty zip ties to secure the harness up and out of the way of the fender liner. 

Step 8: Give your fender aprons and strut towers a good cleaning. Wipe everything down, then hit them with a quick detailer, or wax to bring back a shine. This step may take longer depending on the condition of your car, but it will be worth the extra elbow grease. 

    Step 9: Put your air intake system back on the car, and plug everything up. Then start the car and make sure everything works as it should. The inner fender liner is a pain in the rear to remove, so check everything first before you put it back in. 

Step 10: Replace the fender liner, and wheel. CR

    With only a few hours in the garage, the improvement was very noticeable. The lack of wiring running every which way is a welcome change, and being rather simple a task, we should have done it sooner. Year over year, there will be some differences in the wires you have to move, but overall it will be fairly similar to our resident '92. The concept is the same, just get those wires out of sight. The only drawback to such a project is now all of the swiss cheese under the hood is more pronounced. Maybe we should put a call in to our friends at Scott Rod Fabrication. CR