On Fri, 5 Feb 2016 04:31:33 -0500, "Texas Kingsnake"
wrote:

I am having my electrician buddy help me replace an old circuit box in a
fairly old house. Much of the wiring is old and cloth covered from the
40's. What happens if one of the wires we are replacing breaks or is too
short to reach the breakers in the new panel? Do those broken wires have to
be spliced with wire nuts to a new piece of wire and then the splice section
mounted in a new junction box outside of the new panel? That could get ugly
very quickly but my limited knowledge of the NEC says splices have to be
with approved connectors and inside junction boxes.


You just apply the wirenuts inside the breaker box. That box is a
(junction box) as far as the code. Of course try to get the wires to
breakers that are possible to do without splicing if possible.

Unless this has changed in recent years, you CAN put heat shrink over
old wires, as long as they are not bare from insulation breakdown.
That old cloth covered wire was pretty durable, except if it was exposed
to heat, like in boxes above enclosed light bulbs. Then it got real dry
and often broke off the wire. Modern LED and CF bulbs would not be such
a heat problem, but the old filament bulbs were tough on those wires.

A lot of old tube type electronics also used that cloth wire, and some
had very high voltages.