89 engine swap-how to pull wiring harness?

[don-vee]

Hey, I'm working on this 89 wagon of mine with a 2.0/auto that threw a rod, so I scored a boneyard mill to drop in. I'm used to working on hot rods with minimal wiring, so I'm a bit out of my element here. I got everything ready to pull except for the massive wiring harness which snakes from the front fusebox, under the intake, and goes through the firewall somewhere under the glovebox area. I did a search and found someone on here suggesting to pull the glovebox and lower dash and just unhook it from the ICU, but when I tried that, it looks like there's WAY more to it, and doesn't look at all like his pictures or description, probably because he was working on a 92. Part of this massive harness appears to go down under the center console and such, and some of it goes higher up along the dash, it's definitely not something anyone can simply unplug. It just looks like a huge can of worms I don't want to open up.
My question is, how do I deal with this thing? At this point, I'm ready to unbolt the EFI/intake to get it out of my way. What the hell do I gotta do to unhook this bastard??

[fredk]

drop the glovebox and you will see where it goes then

[drugal]

There should be a disconnect just aft of where the harness goes through the firewall, behind the glovebox. I think it's yellow or blue. It's been a while.

I would suggest that undoing that would be the easiest thing to do. It might be hidden in there pretty good.

[white90dx]

There are 3-5 large connectors to disconnect on the way to the ECU where there are 3 more big connectors. All together, you will have about 5' of harness that gets pulled back into the engine bay. On the front fusebox side, just unplug the connectors from the fusebox and lay that side of the harness over the motor. It shouldn't be too bad.

You should try it after adding about 50% more wires from a motor upgrade/swap...

-Charlie

[don-vee]

Wow, brutal. Did all this today, but was unable to wedge the connectors through the A/C stuff under the dash. I'll try again tomorrow with the help from a friend.
It occurred to me, all this hassle could have been very easily avoided with the help of one of two things: either run the harness along the firewall like most other cars instead of along the intake, or have bulkhead connectors on the firewall like older Mopars, just unplug everything right from the firewall and pull the motor.
Then again, that's why the factory mechanics make the big bucks.