Hey ya'll, I've got a 2002 Monte Carlo 3.4l. It's got a bunch of electrical gremlins and I live in a small town with a bunch of bubbas pretending to be mechanics. I think the most efficient use of time and money would be to just change out the engine wiring harness. But where do you get a new harness? GM doesn't make parts for this car and I can't find any after market harness!
Thanks

 

Unfortunately, I don't believe you will be able to purchase a new wiring harness unless you find someone holding on to "new/old stock". As you mentioned, GM has discontinued it for this car (as well as most anything else). The harness is not popular enough of a replacement item for after market companies to manufacture and the car is not popular enough to see people restoring it (not to mention, it has barely entered into what many consider the age to be called "classic").
You could check for ones from salvage yards. This would also allow you the ability to fully test that everything is working before switching the harnesses, plus you can replace all the old wire loom and tape; making it near new.

 

Unfortunately Maniac, the junk yards i have checked with have cut the engine harnesses when they remove the engine. It's very hard to find an old harness, not even on ebay. Do you know of a reputable harness repair shop? Just a few years ago these were everywhere. Not so anymore.

 

Unfortunately, I don't know any shop that does harness repair.
Another option you have is removing your existing harness, do as I suggested with a used one. If there is a problem, make the appropriate repair. But it would all be a "do it yourself" type project. Just a thought/option.

 

Yeah thanks Maniac, Good idea. I'll just keep looking for a complete harness from a junk yard. One way or another I'm going to be learning a lot more about car electric.

 

A new harness would be a one in a million find. You'd have to look up the GM PN and start deep diving the web to try to find a place that actually had one laying around still. Bad thing is it's a fairly uncommon part to replace so I dont imagine there were a bunch in circulation as it isnt something most places would shelf stock (as opposed to an alternator, wheel bearing, etc).

I wouldnt spend any time trying to find aftermarket; they flat out don't exist. You're at an odd age for repair parts - too old for full factory support but too new to show up on the radar of any of these restoration type places.

IMO the way to go is a used harness. Car-Part.com (junkyard search engine) shows half a dozen or so specific to 3400 / 2002 (not sure what years interchange) across the US. You could start running down the list making calls to verify stock, and if there are none close by you could always buy one remotely and pay to have them remove and ship. Bound to be at least one legitimate one in the pile.

 

Willco that bumpin, i'll start calling tomorrow. Saw a picture on that site, in Georgia, that had an old Monte that looked complete and in better shape than mine. I'll call and ask the condition. Might be cheaper to buy the whole car.

 

Only caution with this site is that these places dont have Amazon levels of inventory sophistication. So dont get discouraged if you strike out on a couple.

In general, if the yard is in this system, they're well above the old school yard managed at the car level only, but it's still riddled with errors. Most common issue I see is it being misidentified by engine / trim (IE you need a 3400 part, but when you talk to them the car is actually a 3800), second most being that inventory is out of date (someone bought that part or the car was crushed in the last few weeks) and they haven't delisted the parts yet.

With how many are listed here though, you should be able to find a few legit ones though.

 

Build your own harness. It's not rocket science. I did a fuel injection harness cause I did not want to buy another piece of old junk. Over the years the wires
corrode, the plastic gets brittle. I took an old harness to see what color wires I needed and bought the wire and connectors as well as a crimping tool, dug out
the wiring diagrams for the size wire and now it is all new, and it looks like it came from the factory, used the samme stuff. Can be done with the entire engine hanrness, just takes longer, but can be done. That's what I would do. But all the best to you whatever route you chose.

 

Thank you for the advice, Maniac,bumpin, volkerc. I found what seems an honest little yard in eastern GA. They e-mailed pictures and I bought a engine harness and engine bay harness for front lights. I didn't read volkerc's suggestion till now. Would have been better option. But not being a mechanic I need to keep things as simple as possible.
I found a performance shop that rebuilds classic race cars from the bottom up. They agreed to inspect and refurb the harnesses for $80 an hour. Does anyone know how many hours it generally takes to fool with harnesses?
Since I'm not in class this semester I'm tempted to do this myself. Do you know of a good youtube video or online guide that would teach this?
Thanks
Wally