Aftermarket Wiring - hurt value, help value or no impact?

[ChallengerGary]

Okay - Some of you may know that I have a 1970 Challenger R/T that I am currently putting together that is destined to be for sale due to mitigating circumstances.  I'd like to see what y'all think about aftermarket wiring.  The situation is this, my R/T has wiring that I know absolutely nothing about as the car was beached when I bought it.  I see a a few things that make not want to put the original harness back under the dash.  Matter of fact, I'd only use it for parts based on what I see.

Now the question is, I can buy a Painless Performance harness for dealer cost and I actually know the Lead Engineer over at Painless and he's willing to help me out if I need it.  Should go that route and rewire the entire car?  Or should I spend the close to $600 on a repop dash harness and deal with all of the other original wiring?  Buying all new repop wiring is out of the question due to budgetary concerns but at the same time, I am not willing to sell a car that I don't feel 100% confident in the wiring.

Anyone know if rewiring the car with an aftermarket harness will hurt, help, or have no impact on the resale of the car?

[72hemi]

Unfortunately I think on a car that is a factory R/T an aftermarket harness will hurt the value of the car. I would order a replacement factory harness.

FYI I have installed a painless harness in my brother's Challenger and it wasn't entirely painless. If you go that route (which I wouldn't on a true R/T car) you will need that contact at Painless as there are some special considerations for wiring the ignition. Also note the Mopar harness they sell is just the standard harness but with Mopar wire colors and is still a pain to wire the ignition, so if you go the painless route save the money from the Mopar kit and get the standard muscle car kit.

The only true painless wiring install I did was on my 70 cuda and I replaced the entire harness with a reproduction harness from Year One on that car.

[mopar12372]

the aftermarket harness will accept the output of all your upgrades where the factory harness wont . if the car is stock resto i would go with stock resto .

[Devil]

I used the painless setup in my 71 Challenger and it was not "painless" but turned out alright.

[burdar]

I'd try to find another factory harness that is better than yours.  Is it better than new...of coarse not but there are plenty of cars driving around with 40 year old wiring.  If you can find a used harness that is in good shape, I'd use it.

[ChallengerGary]

Okay, I guess since I am going to be selling the car, the best bet is to keep the wiring as original as possible.  Thanks for you replies everybody 

[challengermaniac]

Gary,

Along with the help of a friend, we are just at the finishing touches of installing the Painless wiring in my 1970 Challenger and I would definately recommend their product unless your car is a numbers matching RT.