Wiring Harness

[Larry Shier]

Does anyone have Wiring Harness Diagrams for a '74 Avanti ?

[Gunslinger]

I'm not aware of Avanti Motors putting out a schematic or shop manual for the Avanti II at all. About all you can do is use a Studebaker schematic and work around it and use basic electrical diagnosis techniques. There are changes...quite a few depending on the year...and that doesn't begin to decipher what past owners have done to a car's wiring.

[Larry Shier]

I'm not aware of Avanti Motors putting out a schematic or shop manual for the Avanti II at all. About all you can do is use a Studebaker schematic and work around it and use basic electrical diagnosis techniques. There are changes...quite a few depending on the year...and that doesn't begin to decipher what past owners have done to a car's wiring.

Gunslinger; surely they had one. They couldn't wire the car, without one, I don't believe. I can't believe what the previous owner did to this car. I bought it on ebay, and maybe shouldn't have. The wiring was all disassembled forward of the Firewall, and many of the wires are cut. under the Dash, there was a short on two of the heavy wires, and wires are disconnected. It's a mess !! --- Thanks for your reply. as you say, I'll just have to take it one circuit at a time, but, even that is very time consuming without a color coded Diagram. ---Larry (Romeo, Mi.)

[Gunslinger]

I'm sure Avanti Motors had a schematic of some type for internal use, but I've never seen one made available for service use. Whether Avanti made up their own wiring harnesses in-house or had them made by a subcontractor I don't know, but things changed often...particularly in the early to mid-1970's. They changed from the Stude steering column to a different one with the ignition switch built-in, added 4-way flashers, power sunroof, rear window defoggers, moved the power window switches to the console, driving lights, etc., all kinds of changes. All that required changes to the wiring harnesses...either by design or adapting and add-ons. How some of those changes were accomplished may be different depending on the person assembling the car. I know the switch for the rear defogger on my '70 is located differently than on some other Avanti's.

Whatever Avanti Motors did was essentially for in-house. If any schematics were available, I think it was probably for authorized repair centers. I've not heard of any surfacing or being reproduced for owners. All I've ever seen is the Studebaker manuals and using those as a starting point.

Every now and then a new old stock wiring harness shows up on Ebay or at a swap meet, but every one I've seen is a Studebaker Avanti harness. I've never seen an Avanti II harness come up for sale anywhere in any condition. Of course a Stude harness can be adapted and added to. A consideration if you're really ambitious is to buy a universal harness from Summit Racing or Jegs and adapt it to your car. They have eighteen circuits and use modern plug-in fuses and are not all that expensive, but then again, you have to really take thing apart in your car to get it fitted.

[Larry Shier]

rness. It's similar to what GM did. There is a Master Connector Block on the Firewall that is bolted together. And, they put the wiring in a Plastic housing, instead of wrapping the wires with Electrical tape. Then, they use 'tee' fittings, much like in Plumbing, to drop down to Accessories. I was able to check a few Colors of wires from the '77, for a few items. I have the Dash completely out of the '74, & that is a job, you don't want to do very often ! But, there are still wires that seem to have no place to go. My email is: shier2@juno.com. Thanks again, Larry (Romeo,Mi.)

[theGman]

http://www.studebaker-info.org/tech/Diagrams/aec/aec.html