My 69 F100 is nearing "basket" stage, as I am completely disassembling it for a frame-up resto. My interest is making it better, not original, so I'm not worried about using only original parts. I'm now debating whether to try to save the original wiring harness, complete with its many jury-rigged patches and yards of old electrical tape (from prior owners, of course), or scrap it and start fresh. I know there are lots of problems in it that will take quite some time to trace and repair. Does anyone make a repro wiring harness for my truck? What about using one of those "universal" truck harnesses from a company like Painless Wiring? Any thoughts/advice would be appreciated.

 

I have worked with these old F100 wiring harnesses for many years (longer than I like to admit) and I have not been able to find anyone who offers a repro harness.

I continue to repair and "upgrade" the harnesses I have. There are some inherent problems with the original harnesses, such as insufficient wire size to handle the current demand of the headlights, etc. But there are ways to get around these difficulties; installing halogens controlled by relays is one method (I think there is a tech thread about this on this site).

I don't know much about the universal wiring kits. My concerns would be 1) enough circuits to replace the original circuits plus any additional circuits I might decide I need, and 2) current-carrying capabilities of the wire used.

I have built my own wiring harnesses, and they work just fine. The difficulty is that I haven't been able to obtain colored wiring with tracers, i.e., black w/red stripe, etc. So, later on, when I want to add something, or find a short, I have too many solid reds or solid blacks or solid browns, etc.

Whatever you decide to do will no doubt work for you. If you decide to toss your old harness, toss it my way. I'll use it on the 1950 coupe I'm building (302/C-4 w/Mustang II differential).

Buena Suerte

Eddie
"Redneck with a college degree who still likes headache racks, cb's, dual exhausts, and 'west-coast' mirrors"

 

 

Working on LAN's and WAN's, I have a nifty tool called a toner that is made of two parts. One part clips on the end of a wire and injects a warble tone. The other part has a pointed end that "sniffs" or detects the warble tone. This setup lets you pick out a single wire from a whole bundle. Might be worth looking into if you deal with wiring harnesses a lot. Should be able to get a set at a reasonable price (my nice set was $150.) An example of the tools is at http://www.jayso.com/cable_testers.htm