I will be wiring my F1 and would appreciate your suggestions on harnesses available. I saw one from Speedway for $190 and another from Painless for $500. I will be learning as I go too.

Thanks, Jeff

 

I think it depends on what you are doing. I went stock 6V and got the replica wiring harness with cloth covering and properly color coded. It is modern wire wrapped in cloth. I got the entire thing front to back for a 1950 F1 with 6 cyl for around $300. The instructions were very clear and it fit perfectly. It's been a couple years since i got it but i see them advertised everywhere. Are you going stock or something else? 12v or 6v?

 

I went with a 21 circuit from ez-wire. It's sitting at the foot of the bed awaiting warmer weather. I laid it all out in the living room floor to look at it and it looks well made and labeled well too.

 

My suggestion is to get a fuse box kit that already has the wires hooked up like the one that Tracy/1949f1 just mentioned in his post. Also make sure you get enough circuits to handle whatever you want to put in your truck and then some. Map it all out before you start wiring as I found out the hard way. I made the mistake of getting a harness that didn't have any wires already connected and ended up with a rats nest of wires at the fuse box. I have since re-routed and fixed most, but IMO it makes it harder to keep it all neat with having to connect all at the box.

 

I'll scribble down some random, generic points. Just opinions.

• Hands Clean!
  • Corrosion isn’t a friend of long-term Reliability. Especially in regions that accelerate it. Don't be grubbin down a greasy Burger with salty Fries and then handle the goods.
• Battery Cables
  • Fine Strand 1/0 Cable - Solder filled Terminals – Flux Cleaned - Heavy Duty Shrink Sleeve.
• Battery Shut Off Switch
  • Thought it was a bit overkill at first. Found out it’s really a good thing to have. I disable now every time I open the hood. Quick / Easy measure of safety. Also good to have while swinging wire all over the place.
• Chassis Ground
  • 70 year old Frame Rails held together with Rivets in the elements. At the Front and Rear Crossmember corners, I installed 4 gauge jumpers to insure both Frame Rails are well connected.
    • All Connection contact areas at the Chassis are flap-wheeled shiny. Parts cleaned, tightened, and painted over
• Engine Ground to Chassis
  • 4 Gauge
• Engine Assembly Grounding
  • 8 Gauge connecting the Block to the Heads/Head and Intake Manifold (if the Distributor uses it for ground)
• Separate, Dedicated Ground to Chassis
  • On big draw items like an Electric Cooling Fan, Headlights
  • Sensitive items like an Ignition Control Module or Air/Fuel Ratio Gauge
    • Front Clip - With Headlights for example, there's a lot of painted sheet metal bolted together before it connects to the Chassis. I connect both Bucket grounds and run a separate ground wire to Chassis.
    • Dashboard – Same thing. All of the components in the Dash can ground to the Dash Metal but at one end, a 12 Gauge ground wire connects direct to the Chassis.
  • It's tempting, but try to avoid ganging together ground wires from non-related items together such as say, a Radio, with a Tach and a Wiper Motor
• Harness Assembly Kit - Lots of opinions on this from “Doing it Yourself” to a Top of the Line Kit. I used a Painless 21 Circuit kit. To me, worth every penny. In addition to the Kit itself, the way I look at it is that I’m also paying for the Electrical expertise they invested beforehand which I’m not competent to do. I'm sure there are other good Kits as well.
• Connections / Crimping – I'll spare you the metallurgical, design, and failure analysis mumbo-jumbo that was a large part of my Career before Retirement.
  • First Rule:
    • Throw those crappy Home Depot, Radio-Shack Crimpers with the built in Stripper and Screw Cut-Off holes.
    • Well OK, keep it to shorten screws if you want but that’s all.
    • They don’t capture the Barrels during compression. They just smash it flat.
    • They do not have a ratchet mechanism that insures correct compression is achieved before releasing
    • They do not Crimp (mold the plastic) around the Insulation (essential)
  • "Real" AMP, Molex or Deutsch Hand Tools can run 500 Bones. We aren’t driving our Trucks in Space (yet) but we do need proper crimps. I have been very happy with, MSD #3509. It’s a nice piece. The design allows attachment of Die Sets (sold separately). It comes with one Set and the others run about $40. I only needed two. So the expense was less than $100. It’s a quality tool forever. Not a lot to pay for Harness integrity and not breaking down in Baker California on a Summer Day…
• Get Smart About Wire Gauge
  • It’s really important. The second most common failures I’ve found (lousy grounds being #1) is using the wrong Terminal or Die in respect to the application.
  • There are jillions of Charts and Calculators on line for determining wire gauge.
  • Measure the diameter of each strand, count the strands. Look it up. That’s all there is to it.
  • A very common problem is people inserting two or three wires into a single terminal (or using a Die) without considering that they’ve effectively increased the wire gauge beyond what they’re using. The result is an “over-crimp”. The strands “work harden”, become brittle, and will break after a good dose of vibration.
    • When joining wires together, determine the collective strand gauge and then select Terminals / Dies sizes accordingly.
  • Obviously, the other scenario is too loose (or wrong Die used). After I crimp a Terminal, I pull fairly hard on it. A proper Crimp won’t come off. It it does, something is wrong and you need to find out why.
• Harness Dressing / Tie-Wraps –
  • Be mindful of any components in your Truck that can be sensitive to fields emanating from the large current wires. A good example in my Truck are the Magnetic Pickup wires on my MSD Distributor.
    • It’s best to route those component harnesses away from the big current sources. Don’t allow them to run parallel or be tie-wrapped together. If they get close to each other try and route them at a 90 degree intersection. Sometimes (as in my case) shielding is required.
  • “Service Loops” – When routing and dressing wires you don’t want them tight and rigid. It makes later service hard and the stress isn’t good for the connections. Give yourself a relaxed 90 degree loop at the connection. It need not be large. You don’t want wires flopping around.
  • Tie-Wraps – You don’t need to max out the tool cranking them down. Especially with small gauge wire. You can actually break strands and open insulation. I do use a tool but gently. On wires smaller than 18 gauge I use wax string (yep, I’m Old-School)
• Working with a Kit – Once you lay it out and start, it can appear daunting. It isn’t that bad.
  • Each Insulation is marked throughout its length
  • All of the wires are too long. You will be cutting a good deal of it off to the length you need.
  • If there are Circuits the Kit offers you won’t be using. You can cut them out to reduce the clutter but, leave 12” at the Fuse Box. I took all of these, Shrink-Sleeved the ends, and tied them away in the event I need another circuit at some point.
  • Lastly, it’s just one wire at a time. Initially, it’s a rats-nest, but with each wire installed, it starts looking pretty cool.

I’m sure there’s more but that’s all I can think of for now.

Good Luck

 

It all depends upon how much you are plan or think that you might modify your truck. I used a Ron Francis kit and it is very easy. All the wires are labeled along the complete length with connectors where they should be.

 

My best suggestion is this. Lay out the entire kit first. Put the fuse box where you want it. Then walk away. Come back in a few hours/another day and see if the location will actually work for you. Try to locate and extract a fuse. Once satisfied, run all the wires going through the firewall and stretch them all out and separated. Run all the wires going to the front/rear and make sure they reach the proper light. Take those individual runs and wrap, tie them in their permanent location. Don't worry about the length or terminals yet. Now, get under the dash and do the same thing. Most will run to the switches and gauge cluster. Keep them separate, from the fuse box to the end. Put temporary wire ties on those that go to the same location. Now, you can start to make connections, Give yourself an extra 3 inches for every wire. If you don't have one, buy an electric soldering iron and use it to ensure your terminals are in proper contact. Shrink tubes make things look good and are cheap. Go slow. If you have never done it before, go very slow. Do not make a single cut, on any wire, until you know the circuit works. That means you will be spending a lot of time connecting and disconnecting the battery.

 

I have used Ron Francis and Painless Wiring kits and found both made very well. My current car has EZ wire system installed by a PO. It also seems to be okay. I don't think you can go wrong with any major brand kit.

 

Here's my 2 cents. It's worth the extra hundred bucks or so to simply get the OEM style identical reproduction from DC or one of the various other companies who re-sell DC stuff. It literally looks just like the original harness, and it takes all the guesswork, crimping, cutting, measuring, mistakes, etc. etc. out of the equation. But obviously that's probably not the way to go if you have a modernized truck with lots of extra stuff and creature comforts.

 

 

 

 

I like a lot of what eman92082 (Ernie) said in his post (#5).
I have a custom made harness in my '48. (Delco alternator and some other requirements made an off-the-shelf not really feasible)
The guy who did my harness was a wiring guru on an F1 racing team in the 80's-90's.
The MSD part number eman92082 mentions is actually jaw dies for the plier. There are many different dies available; #3509 is actually the one for 18-20 and 14-16 gauge.
MSD #35051 is the part number for the actual crimping plier itself.

I noticed in the 2018 Mid-Fifty F-1 Parts catalog I just got in the mail yesterday that they list a 12 V custom harness #3200-4852 which would do pretty much mine does for a tad over $300. (with fuse panel too)
1948-52 Ford F-100 Wiring Harness 48-52, 12 Volt Retro