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We'll see Ross. I'm thinking I can maybe get the three wires for the generator attached in five minutes--longer of course if there are issues with the connectors. I noticed right away that the connectors for the voltage regulator were not right. I'm going to get started tomorrow. I'll have about half a day with some limited help from my friend.
The new harness, and my original, arrived today! There was a lot going on today, and I wasn't able to really get much of an idea about how difficult (or easy) the installation is going to be. Wouldn't you know it; my friend, the auto electric guy, is leaving for a two week vacation early Monday morning. I'll be left unsupervised, and that doesn't always go so well. I'm not missing out on any cruising opportunities, however. We have 6-10 inches of snow plus freezing rain in our forecast over the next few days. There might very well still be snow on the ground, and salt on the roads, when my friend gets back.
Abe, I wouldn't be too sure. My friend was too busy getting everything squared away before his vacation to provide any help yesterday. I spent the first five minutes with my new wire harness trying to find a trouble light that worked. I didn't find one, and so had to make do with the available overhead lighting. Next, I got the harness laid out and sort of positioned in the engine bay, and the under-dash portion of the harness stuffed through the firewall. For guidance on this project, I have a blue print of the new harness, a wiring diagram for my truck, and the labels I made for the old harness as each wire was disconnected. I should be good to go, right?
I found the three wires that go to the generator without difficulty, and at about the fifteen minute mark, I had the armature wire attached. Next up were the field and the ground wires for the generator--and I soon realized I didn't really know the difference. There may be markings on the generator, but I couldn't see them. I'm pretty sure, however, that my friend would immediately know the difference just by feeling for the position of the terminals on the generator.
After about 30 minutes struggling for a way forward, I came to the unpleasant realization that most of what I would do in my friend's absence would probably be wrong anyway, and finding my mistakes was no doubt going to take longer than If my friend would just start from scratch. It became easy for me to latch onto the rationalization suggested by Stu's mention of the theoretical factory worker on the assembly line being capable of installing a simple wire harness like mine in five minutes. Why would I want to spend hours trying to accomplish something that a professional could do in minutes? I know that is a lame excuse to many of you who thrive on overcoming obstacles and take pride in doing all the work on your truck yourself.
We are looking at a forecast of another 15 plus inches of snow over the next few days, and so my truck isn't really going anywhere anytime soon. The fact that the St. Louis Truckfest event was recently cancelled also took the pressure off to get my truck back on the road as soon as possible. In two weeks, my friend, the professional, will be back. In the scheme of things, two weeks isn't going to be too long to wait. Yet another lame excuse, I'm afraid.
Finally, there is some progress to report on the re-wiring front. First the good news; the harness generally seems to fit as advertised! All the wires we have worked with so far have been cut to the right length and just a few of the connectors have had to be modified. The engine starts and runs again and the headlights work. The gauges aren't hooked up yet, so there still could be some issues with the under dash part of the harness. Unfortunately, there doesn't appear to be any included wiring for the signal lights, dome light, lighter, or heater. These wires will need to be added. A power source for the rear view camera I want to install will also have to be added. My friend is happy he can easily move my truck in and out of his shop again. I'm happy my truck should be back on the road again soon.
The harness is pretty much installed now, and I can honestly say we really didn't have any issues we could directly blame on the quality or design of the Narragansett harness. There were still issues (of course)--and yes, it has taken more than five minutes.
The most troublesome issue we are having is getting the signal lights to work. My friend, the auto electrician, spent a considerable amount of his (expensive) time yesterday addressing this problem. He's decided that the fault is not in the Narragansett harness, but rather somewhere in the headlight crossover wiring. To really get at this problem, we decided that the headlights and grill would have to be removed. Doing so (of course) involved a few small scratches and scuffs to my paint, but with the crossover wiring exposed, we are hoping to wrap things up today.
Jim
Edit: Initially, we didn't think the Narragansett harness had signal light wiring, but we determined that it does, and it is not the problem.
Are your grille teeth welded to the crossbar? Some are, some aren't. Either way it's tough to remove/install without scratching something. It helps to tape around the holes in the lower valance.
My grill teeth are thankfully bolted to the lower valance. Taping the holes would have been a good idea and would have saved a few light scratches caused by my impatience. We got the headlight crossover wiring harness sorted out. There were some issues. I'm guessing I messed things up when I put the front end together after the re-paint last summer. I thought my signals were working for the "driving season" last summer and fall, but apparently not! Now we just need to make the signal light connections under the dash. I thought I still had the wiring diagram for the signal light switch I purchased, but I can't seem to find it.
The re-wiring job is almost all wrapped up, and my truck is finally back home from a five month absence. There are still some gauges and dash lights that don't work, but it runs and drives. The lights and signals work too. I want to change out my cheesy repo signal light switch for a NOS Signal Stat 700 unit I recently picked up on line. Hopefully when the new parts come in (Signal Stat switch, temp sending unit, and firewall grommet), we can finally close the book on the re-wiring phase of my restoration project.
This is how the engine bay wiring looks for now:
The red wire that is not in the harness is for the headlight relay switches we added.
The "book" is still open on the wiring up-grade, and the "pages" aren't turning as fast as you might think they should when you are getting so close to the end of the story. The parts are in now for the signal light switch exchange that I wanted to do. Yesterday was supposed to be be the day for the wiring project to finally be finished--but it didn't happen (again). Making the connections for the new signal switch was more of a hassle then we were expecting. For the longest time, we couldn't get the left signal light to work, but finally, after a frustrating hour or so, we discovered our mistake. Brake lights are another thing that didn't go according to plan. We didn't even get to the temp or oil pressure gauges yet. So a little more time and money slipped away yesterday. The end is in sight, but we haven't arrived there yet.
So, another couple of weeks have slipped by. I've been marking time waiting for a pair of 6V relays purchased on-line to come in. We are hoping the relays will finally solve the problems we have been having getting the signal and brake lights to work with the new Signal Stat 700 switch. The gauges are all working now--also the charging system. I've put on about 250 miles since my truck came home from the shop. At the last fill-up, I averaged 13.3 MPG. This is down from last summer when I was getting about 16 MPG. With my steering fixed, I've been going about 20 MPH faster, however. I made a 100 mile trip today, and keeping up with traffic on the two lane roads was no problem. On the interstate, I stayed in the slow lane and tried to maintain about 62 MPH.
Not only is the book on wiring and electrical problems still not closed, but we've gone back to review some of the early chapters. On a whim, my friend, the auto electric guy, suggested we take my truck and go to a car show about two and a half hours away. The trip went great. I was able to go 60-65 mph the whole way. The truck felt strong, I worked a little on the doors so they didn't rattle quite so much, and the car show (my first) turned out to be a very nice event. The only negative was the temperature was in the 90's until we got close to Lake Michigan. It was one hot trip with no headliner, insulation, or floor mats. It felt like a convection oven in the cab with all the engine heat and the hot air from the windows and cowl vent flowing through the truck. The car show was held close to Lake Michigan, and it was cool there and shady too.
Coming home is when the real adventure started. We left the show about 9:00 P.M. (about three hours later than we should have). As we were driving along and it was getting dark, we were gratified to see how bright the headlights were and feeling good about the recently installed headlight relays. After about an hour of driving though the lights started to be getting noticeably dimmer, and we were forced to face to the grim realization that the charging system was not working (again).
By 10:30 it had gotten very dark, the lights very dim, our speed had slowed to a crawl, and we were forced to pull over and switch to our back-up battery. The lights brightened up with the fresh battery, but we knew we were in trouble with probably more than two hours yet to travel at slow speeds with weak lights in the dark. As it turned out, we only got about five miles further and the back-up battery failed spectacularly. There was a huge backfire (strong enough to blow a hole in the muffler), the engine stopped, and the lights went out. So there we were--On the side of a lonely road, at 11:00 P.M., very much in the dark, with two dead batteries, and still a long ways from home. I hung an emergency flashing light in the back window, and we settled in to contemplate our situation.
It wasn't long before a really great guy stopped with a huge truck with lots of bright flashing lights. He spent an hour with us while we waited for a tow truck to arrive. The tow truck guy took us back to his shop in a nearby town and spent at least another hour with us in his air-conditioned office until our ride home arrived. I got home about 2:00 A.M.
This morning my friend and I were up early and drove back with a fresh battery to retrieve my truck. Except for the blown muffler, the truck seems to be fine. We do seem to be back to square one with the charging system, however. I had another interesting adventure and met some very nice people along the way. My truck is back at the shop for now, but I am hopping to have it in the local 4th of July parade. I'm also planning to go to the Iola Car Show with it.
Manitowoc/Two Rivers "Cool City" car show and cruise.
There were a lot of mustangs and corvettes at the car show. People were saying there were over 900 vehicles at the event, but these are the only two Ford trucks that I saw of our particular vintage:
The show starts on a college campus in Manitowoc. Then there is a cruise through downtown Manitowoc and along the Lake Michigan shore to downtown Two Rivers.
Jim
04-12-2018, 10:23 PM
