1989 Turbo Minivan harness in an L body

[GLHS60]

As everyone knows using a 1989 turbo minivan under hood harness and 1988-1989 Omni/Horizon dash harness is a great way to convert an L body to a SMEC system as the bulkhead connectors bolt together. I just scrapped a 1989 Turbo minivan and gave the harness to my pal speedfreek500 so he can run a SMEC in his Omni and we're trying to locate a dash harness to complete the job. It occurs to me that the mini van dash harness might be adaptable to the Omni dash so I'm throwing this idea out to anyone who has ever had a dash or dash harness out of a Turbo minivan. The minivan is going to the crusher soon and is covered with a foot of snow so I don't want to remove the dash harness if I'm overlooking something.

Anyone have any input??

Possible problems:

Bulk head connector: Should be good
Radio plug connectors: Should be good .... More speakers in a van but he doesn't run a radio
Ignition switch connector: Probably good ???
Headlight switch connector: Probably good ???
Heater electrical connector: Probably good ???
Signal light switch connector: Probably good ???
Cluster connection: ??



Please discuss!!

Thanks
Randy

[GLHS60]

No one have any input??

Thanks
Randy

[raccoon]

its going to get tricky where the body harness connects to the dash harness and the door harness.

[GLHS60]

Care to elaborate?? I've never had the harness out of a mini.

Thanks
Randy

its going to get tricky where the body harness connects to the dash harness and the door harness.

[iTurbo]

I have converted two (well three really) L-bodies to turbo SMEC. The first one was my first car, an '85 GLH H.O. I removed all the original under hood wiring and used an '89 turbo Caravan harness. I did not touch any of the under dash wiring and instead chose to convert the bulkhead over to the older 40-pin plug. It was easier than it sounds because the simplicity of the L-body meant that there were a lot of vacant pins in the bulkhead. Also, the large pins between the 50 and 40 pin are the same (power feeds, lights mostly). All I had to do for the large pins was unclip them from the 50-pin shell and reinsert into the proper location in the 40-pin. I did have to cut the small pins off from the Caravan's 50-pin shell and splice on the large pins so they would fit into the Omni's 40-pin shell. There were quite a few circuits that I left unconnected on the Caravan harness at the bulkhead. Things like cruise control etc.. I just cut them and insulated the end of the bare wire with a small piece of shrink tube and left them out of the 40-pin shell. For the fuel pump wiring, I used the stock wiring from an '88 Omni and ran it just like stock to a plug under the dash which had the Z1 feed just like the factory did.

Unfortunately a drunk driver tried to park on my '85 Omni GLH H.O. just before I was done with the project, so I transferred the whole thing over to my replacement '86 GLH Turbo. I didn't have to do anything with the fuel pump wiring though, since it was already there on that car. The car fired up first try! Put a LOT of miles on that setup and it was very reliable. I had a tough time trying to mount all the relays and solenoids in not-so-stock locations, and there were some other oddities like extra turn signal connectors. The TPS/AIS wiring needed to be shortened, the headlight plugs had to be swapped over, and also the windshield wiper motor connector was different.

I also converted an '88 Omni underhood harness to Turbo. That was a pretty involved project, but I liked that it looked so stock when it was done and fit like a glove. If you happen to have extra wiring harness parts lying around (bulkhead pins/shells specifically), I would just go that route. There really is no need to go under the dash for anything when all you really need to do is interface the bulkhead plug properly. Hope this helps!

[iTurbo]

Almost forgot, I've also made a bulkhead adapter which worked well. It was basically a 50-pin female bulkhead connector on one end, and a 40-pin male bulkhead connector on the other, with about 6 inches of wiring between the two. I made it so that I could test the '88 Omni harness (ala Super 60) out on my '86 GLH Turbo. It was great for testing purposes and very adaptable because the pinout could be changed within the adapter. Kinda interfered with the clutch cable though. Would have worked better if it was only 3-4 inches of wiring between the two instead of 6".

[speedfreek500]

Thanks for the input, my fuse box in my 1986 Glh is in very bad shape. This was an idea of Randy's trying to use a mini dash harness into an Omni. Randy and I will try to confirm this in the spring.