This weekend was a busy one.  I had a bit of a challenge on my hands after I’d been asked if I could wire tuck a friend’s Civic.  I was confident I could get the job done but prior to this job I had never worked on an “EK” Civic.  His EK wasn’t entirely different from the EG Civic I’m used to.  Some bolts were in different locations and the wiring was laid out slightly differently, so it was a relatively stress free job.

For those of you that don’t know what a “wire tuck” is; You’re engine bay is full of wiring.  It is normally ran down the sides of the bay, taking power to the headlights, sidelights, air conditioning and other accessories. Tucking these wires, is simply hiding them.  It gives the engine bay a cleaner look and focuses the eye more on the engine than all the clutter around the edges.  The one I did at the weekend was a basic tuck.  We only hid the accessory wires.  You can go further and hide the engine loom, power steering, air conditioning, battery and fuse box etc.  Unfortunately this isn’t going to be a complete How To, but just an overview of what I got up to.

Saturday morning dawned and I was woken up by sun streaming through my window. It seemed Spring had finally arrived in the UK. After downing the essentials (Weetabix, Marmite on Toast & Coffee) I grabbed all my electrical gear and headed over to Kyle’s.  When I arrived Kyle had already began stripping down the front end. To make this job possible, you have to remove nearly all the body panels from the front.  In fact, everything except the bonnet.  You also have to remove the battery, (it should be disconnected when doing anything electrical) and fusebox, so we whipped those out too.  With the front garden full of body panels and the sun beating down it was time to start stripping the wiring back and cleaning it all up.

Kyle hasn’t owned the car long.  He bought it as it stands now, so stripping the car back to this extent gave us an opportunity to see how well the car had been put together by the previous owner.  Unfortunately, that person seems to have “bodged” a few things that we’ll have to get sorted.  Ignoring the bodges, the previous owner also removed the ABS system which left all the orange plug dotted about the bay.

The accessory wiring loom is mostly separate from the engine loom which made the job a bit easier.  The EK accessory loom runs from one shock tower, all around the front of the engine bay to the opposing shock tower.  All of this wiring had to be unplugged, unbolted and unclipped from its original position.  It was then a case of laying it out on the floor and seeing which wires we didn’t need.  The ABS wiring was removed, and one section of loom for the front fog lights.  That was the simple bit.

The “tricky” bit is the next job.  You have to take the plugs from the accessory wiring that is left in the engine bay, unwrap all the insulation and try to feed those plugs back into the cabin area.  It takes a long time, but you can’t just go hacking at the loom to try to get the insulated cover and tape off.  If you end up cutting through a wire it just makes the job that little bit more difficult.  It’s awkward too.  On the inside, where you’re feeding the wires to, you have to remove panels from the dashboard, parts of the heater matrix and twist yourself into unnatural positions to see where the wires are coming through.

Bit by bit we managed it.  The loom had to be cut open very carefully on the inside to free up just enough length so we wouldn’t have to extend any wires.  After we went to all that trouble getting all the wires we needed inside, it was time to find a different route for them.  The best route on a Civic is to feed it out of the hole created for the door wiring.  It’s big enough to fit the large accessory plugs through and saves you having to make a hole, we just had to make sure the loom was protected enough from the metal edges of the hole and seal the bung up after we’d fed the wiring out.

We we’re on the home straight now though.  All that needed to be done now was to feed the wiring around the inner wings, securing it with cable ties and making sure all plugs were covered and waterproof.  I managed to route it just right so no wires needed to be extended.  When I removed the wiring at the start I’d tried to keep as many as the OEM clips intact as possible so it was simply a case of pushing the clips back into a hole to secure the harness.  Back in place and all connected up it was time to reconnect the battery and test all the electrics, all worked perfectly.

So after all that messing about with the wiring it was time to reassemble the car, putting all the body and interior back together and giving the engine bay a good clean.  A nice long 7 hour day but the sun shone for the whole time and I didn’t get stressed once.  A job well done I think.

I’m not sure what’s next for Kyle’s Civic but I’ll try to lend a hand when I can, and if anyone want’s a wire tuck doing, shout up and I’ll see if it can be done.