How to bench test my electrical wiring - Request

Before I begin, you should know that the car is disassembled. The wiring has all been removed, but I haven't unplugged any of its connections. For example, the wiring under the hood is all still in one, long "rope" that all comes together in the harness.

I want to test the electrical continuity of the wires. That is, if I know that a complete circuit is operating, I want to use a test light to make sure that everything has power. My main interest is to see whether my fuel and temp gauges work on the instrument panel. I figure that, while it's out of the car, it is a good idea to check ALL the wires. Since it's a '67, that means that there aren't a whole lot of them, so it wouldn't take too much time.

Does that make sense?



If possible, I'd like to use my multimeter to test just how much power is getting through all the wires.

Power through wires is the amperage of what load it will carry. A light bulb in a pigtail will show you the continuity and a small amount of load. You would need a few different size ballast resistors one for each gauge wire to load test them. Just make sure all the wires have good continuity and the terminals are in good shape and you should be fine. Having a good terminal removal tool helps out tremendously. (you have Packard 56 connectors)