Club 80-90 Forums

I know this is a stretch, but has anyone seen the actual manufacturing schematics sent to the electric shops that built the original wiring harnesses with all the various plugs and connectors, wire colors, gauges, and lengths, etc.?

I'm looking at a lot of the wiring in my 1990 1.6 TD JX and am thinking it wouldn't be hard to build a fresh engine bay wiring harness from scratch if I had that information. And even if I didn't do that it would be massively helpful to just see an illustrated representation of the whole harness and how it routes around the engine bay (and the rest of the vehicle for that matter) to assist in identifying things. 

I haven't paid for Partslink24 access yet, but I've looked at the 7zap site and if they're the same then I'm not sure if the diagrams there will be any better or much help. Though I haven't paid for 7zap either yet so they're still obscuring part numbers which could make it more useful if I could look up the part number and see if it's what I thought I was looking at.

Not checked but you could have a look at Andys (Syncroandy) site. https://syncrosport.com/

VW used multiple suppliers, and that information will only be held by VW, you are not about to find it floating about anywhere now; it may have been archived, if so likely to be on fiche, and the paper stuff will be securely archived or destroyed; the pin boards will have been destroyed many years ago, and I bet the actual build suppliers' data was also destroyed when they asked VW if they wanted any more making, or if they wanted the tooling and VW said 'no ta', back in 2007.
I don't even think you can find a complete list of the terminal housings and their respective Hella or AMP (and other suppliers') part numbers.
Info in ETOS is better than zap7 but is no longer complete and exhaustive as parts were deleted without supersession and part numbers wiped from the record. The listings for the electrical terminals and hosuings is fairly complete though, but again doesn't give you the manufacturers part numbers.
Andy knows more than most peeps, he's been down the rabbit hole

R0B wrote: ↑19 Sep 2025, 11:23 Not checked but you could have a look at Andys (Syncroandy) site. https://syncrosport.com/

I actually sent Andy a message yesterday not realizing he was the man behind Syncrosport! Regarding a different topic, but still!
 

Aidan wrote: ↑19 Sep 2025, 16:19 VW used multiple suppliers, and that information will only be held by VW, you are not about to find it floating about anywhere now; it may have been archived, if so likely to be on fiche, and the paper stuff will be securely archived or destroyed; the pin boards will have been destroyed many years ago, and I bet the actual build suppliers' data was also destroyed when they asked VW if they wanted any more making, or if they wanted the tooling and VW said 'no ta', back in 2007.
I don't even think you can find a complete list of the terminal housings and their respective Hella or AMP (and other suppliers') part numbers.
Info in ETOS is better than zap7 but is no longer complete and exhaustive as parts were deleted without supersession and part numbers wiped from the record. The listings for the electrical terminals and hosuings is fairly complete though, but again doesn't give you the manufacturers part numbers.
Andy knows more than most peeps, he's been down the rabbit hole

I'm not shocked TBH, it bums me out how anti right to repair VW is, especially in the case of these vehicles that are 30+ years old that they don't care about anymore anyway. It's funny, we've got a 2012 "The Beetle" 1.2 Tsi and a headlight blew and in the process of trying to replace it I bought the matching lamp from the company that makes them for VW, but it wouldn't fit! Turns out VW has them made with a proprietary coding ring where the lamp seats into the enclosure, on an otherwise identical lamp you can buy at any local parts store. Looking like they want to make you go into a dealership and have a factory tech swap out the whole enclosure assembly rather than just swapping bulbs. Either way, I just grabbed my Dremel and "re-coded" the ring on the lamp and it works like a charm fitting perfectly.

It's crazy they don't just open up parts search for everyone, considering it could only lead to more parts sales. Not that this would apply to actual mfg schematics, but even then in regards to older model classic vehicles that VW doesn't even make or stock parts on why not? What could be the harm in opening up designs for vehicles 35 years old or older

Well, here's hoping someday we'll get access to more in depth information. Thanks for this either way both of you!

Another part of the equation is that many of the companies operating in Germany (and elsewhere - a lot of the water hoses were made in the UK by the AVON rubber company, who no longer make anything but NBC suits for example) back in the 1980s have been taken over/absorbed into bigger companies who themselves have often been taken over, so many no longer exist in any way, shape, or form or are merely a brand name used by a big corp on made in China cheap stuff. A lot of machinery was sold to the far east in the off-shoring of jobs that has occurred over the last 40 years as well so even if the company exists the ability to make parts as they were done originally no longer exists and the costs of tooling up for short runs is often prohibitive. We are in a better position than owners of many newer vehicles, and I am amazed at how much stuff has been remanufactured, some of it is pretty good really.

The only time VW care about our old vehicles is for advertising purposes, trying to sell the 'story' about how long their vehicles last - which is no longer true, they are just overpriced, made to a price, overcomplicated, short lived rubbish.

Surely, I guess I was just spoiled growing up in the 70's-90's USA where most of the sought out classics and muscle cars had third party companies producing fresh heads, engine blocks, transmissions, (wiring looms, lamps, gauges) etc. either cast or billet, many of which were reengineered to be better than the original. Even in the early 2000's when I was messing around with my 1990 and 1996 Mitsubishi Eclipses and my 1992 Ford F-150 I could get a freshly manufactured crate engine or transmission for either, and probably still can. In a range to fit most people's budgets (well, not the billet ones of course). I'm sure it was like that over here also to some degree at the very least if not 100%.

Side note, it just dawned on my that I've only owned cars from that six year span in the past 25 years

It's just unfortunate the parts landscape for these vehicles isn't like that, I know there's a big enthusiasts pool for them, they wouldn't get stolen so much if there weren't. 

I guess in this case we can thank our stars SyncroAndy is around doing the good work