Cleaning wiring

I found some time to get back to the project this weekend and thought to tackle the wire harnesses. Has anyones cleaned their original wires to remove some of the grease and undercoating overspray? I realize these are 40 year old wires and start to become brittle. I would like to clean them to identify the original colors and then treat them to avoid further deterioration. Any advice??

I found some time to get back to the project this weekend and thought to tackle the wire harnesses. Has anyones cleaned their original wires to remove some of the grease and undercoating overspray? I realize these are 40 year old wires and start to become brittle. I would like to clean them to identify the original colors and then treat them to avoid further deterioration. Any advice??

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Denatured alcohol or spi waterborne wax & grease remover for cleanup..Dielectric grease on all the connectors..after the above I wraped the entire harness on the camaro with hockey stick tape..Looks & works great ! You could use adams vrt on the plastic if your looking to leave them exposed.

I clean wires every weekend when I refurbish harnesses. The undercoating/overspray in the engine compartment is a real bitch, and I'm still searching for a good remover. The best I've found is lacquer thinner. I also use LT for general grease and dirt removal by dipping a rag in LT and using elbow grease; LT is fairly gentle on wire colors.. Be careful, though, as LT can remove paint.

I have a very difficult process to offer but works great...... oven cleaner for the really tuff undercoating and then Goop or Gojo. Goop or Gojo is my first choice. clean let it set wipe it off.

The trick is to use something that doesn't remove the "tracer stripe color". The petrified under coat, as others have mentioned, is a real pain. It is a slow process but, a rag soaked in mineral spirits wrapped around the harness and allowed to soak and penetrate works some of the time and doesn't remove the tracer paint. If that doesn't work I resort to lacquer thinner. If you wipe too hard or too often it will take off the tracer paint. General grease and grime I use wax and grease remover followed by soap and water with a tooth brush. Chuck

I used a product from Ron Francis, It was called......A new harness. In all seriousness my harness was bad in so many spots I had no choice but to buy another harness and since I was running all aftermarket stuff inside and out that was the best route to go. But then the problem is nobody makes on with Ford in mind. Guess our harnesses held up better than chebbeys