Hey folks!

New here, so please excuse me if I'm missing anything in the following post.

Trying to get a 1978 F250 SuperCab with a 400 motor running... well, period. She used to run - drove it home about 20km from where I bought it - but after mucking around with some lighting issues, she's not happy anymore.

Have had a few pals help me out, and we've concluded that there's likely a short somewhere, and while we could spend time tracing it, the feeling is that the wires are so far gone in this truck, it's likely smarter to replace them.

Add to that the fact that the harness has been butchered/chopped/spliced so many times over this trucks 40 years, it's a damn rat's nest in there - will add photos later so you can see.

So I'm thinking of replacing the entire harness, but as I'm budget conscious at the moment (starting a new business has me cash strapped) and really just want this truck to be my workhorse (for now) I'm wondering if anyone has feedback on the universal kits I see out there?

My local parts shop - KMS - hast the "Keep It Clean" KICPRO15D on sale right now, so am thinking of getting it. Any one have experience in wiring up an older F-Series with one of them?

Cheers, and thanks in advance.

Dan

 

Welcome to FTE. Feel free to read through my recent post with similar questions LINK HERE I have used the Keep it clean basic kits before on jeeps, and done some classic ford cars with Painless universal kits. It's not too difficult, especially if you have wiring diagrams on hand, and use the old harness to help trace out wire locations.

 

Thanks, appreciate it! Will dig in to that thread.

Cheers,

Dan

 

I should ask - what have you decided (if you have yet) for the F150?

 

I've not fully made up my mind yet. But I do know that I will be using a universal style harness, without any pre-terminated connections.

 

 

I used a Painless fuse block. The fuses are all labelled, so making the right connections are easy enough. One advantage to this is that you can do different circuits at different times. This means that you can still drive the truck and not have to worry about all that extra wire hanging around, bundled up. The disadvantages are that you will either need to label your wires or number them with wire markers. This can be tedious. If you use wire markers, you should draw out a schematic while you are running the wires. Another disadvantage is that you will need to land ALL the terminals since you will doing your own wires. Finally, there is the gauge and electronic ignition/coil wires to consider, since they operate at a lower voltage when the engine is running. Do you go for aftermarket gauges? Try to keep the correct resister inline? These are some of the items to think about beforehand. In my case, I found it easier to go with aftermarket gauges, HEI distributor and one wire alternator. This made the wiring straightforward. Hope this helps.