Hey everyone,
got the fuel problems taken care of last night but upon doing so i checked all other wiring. alot of the wiring from the PO is questionable. I would like to re-wire the truck. Anyone have any experiance using Painless Wiring harnesses? they look pretty straight forward and come highly reccomended from a few guys in my area.... just cuious about your experiances


thanks guys

 

I like the looks of the Painless Wiring, with the exception of the price tag. It seems a bit pricey to me. I've always heard good things about Painless Wiring, good quality, etc.

Because I'm a tightwad, when I wired up my 49 I opted for the EZ Wiring 21 circuit harness. I bought it for $150 (that has been several years ago so the price has probably gone up a bit)

Good luck
Bobby

 

I used painless in Homade and everything works properly, real easy and I'm fuel injected and it is really good, Garry

 

I got my EZ harness (12 ckt) from ebay for $145-ish delivered. Bobby is right, they have gone up some, but are still under 200 clams for the 21 ckt harness. They advertise in Classic Trucks mag.
www.ezwiring.com

 

Another vote for the EZwire harness. Excellent quality, really helpful if you have a question, < 1/2 the price of the Painless. It's like buying a Rolex, do you want to tell the time or pay big $ for the name?

 

Hi,

I have a question...why not just make your own. These trucks are really very minimally wired and it's just not that tough. Unless you are doing an emperical restoration and want all the right colors on the wires, you could easily rewire yourself.

I promote this for three reasons - and I realize it is a matter of personal choice and level of skill. But, if you buy a harness, you have to hook everything up to it anyway in the right places, and that really is the challenge to start with - routing and traceability.

Second, if you wire yourself, you have a very keen sense of where everything is and how it is routed. So if you develope any shorts or want to add something later (like say a trailor plug) you have first hand knowledge of your entire wiring system, and troubleshooting is VERY much simplified.

Third, if you wire yourself, you have a job that was done for YOUR truck and is not generic in nature. Each system or component is specifically wired for operation in your truck, and if you plan to add things later - stereo, spot lights, power antenna, etc. you can prewire to support that and incorporate it in your system now so you don't have to chop it up later.

I have a complete set of wiring diagrams I made when I rewired my truck from scratch. They are in Microsoft Power Point (pictures are in my gallery). If you decide to do your own wiring, I will be more than happy to send you the Power Point file to wire by (and adjust the colors of wires if you choose to for your truck) then you will have a full and complete schematic of YOUR trucks wiring when you done. That picture may be worth it's weight in gold at a later time. I would also be more than happy to adjust my drawings to your needs and make you a custome diagram to wire to (and take all my toys off).

If you are interested, send me a PM with your real e-mail address and we can chat about it.

Good Luck,
Julie

 

Julie,

When I started messing around with my truck my first plan was to wire it myself. I'm no stranger to auto electrical systems and they do not intimidate me at all. Since I am in no way going back anywhere close to stock I figured I could do the wiring myself, no problem, especially since I have a couple of dash harnesses (complete with the big GM style fuse blocks) and engine harnesses from late model (mid 80's) Cadillacs.

Once I started looking into it and deciding what I might want on the truck in the future and figuring out how many circuits I might need and how many different colors of wire, different connectors, etc. I let my wife talk me into spending the money to go ahead and buy a premade harness and eliminate alot of the hassle.

The average parts store only caries a few different colors and sizes of primary wire so you'd have to order rolls of wire in the colors (and colored tracers) that you would need, etc, etc, etc.

I was able to purchase my EZ Wiring harness on Ebay (brand new and shipped to my door) for $150. I'd have probably spent that much on buying materials to do it myself. I chose the 21 circuit colored harness. It comes with all the fuses, horn relay, etc. You can specify what steering column connector you need as well. Sure, I don't need 21 circuits on my truck (yet...lol) but its easy to remove the extra wires from the fuse block and store them away until the future comes calling. For me and my application it just made sense to use a premade harness.

Here is a decent write up on installing a wiring harness in an old truck. The guys that wrote it up was intalling a harness in an old Chevy but the basic concepts are all the same and its good information;
1954 Chevy Pickup | Rewire Project - Page 1

Nice job on the diagrams! Thats good info
Bobby

 

I just installed a 7 circuit wiring kit into my 51 F-1, 6 cyl. I bought it off of ebay for $75 shipped. It was one of the T kits. I am a dealer for American Autowire and I really like thier kits the best. Larger bus bar, and the wire attach to the box with screws, instead of having to run the wire from the box out, you can run the wire to the box.

 

55effie.

Take a look at Enos Custom Components, San Luis Obispo .They have a "blackbox" that I have used
and am very satisfied with.

Gary

 

For my '54, I am planning to use the complete wiring harness from the '74 Gran Torino donor which provided the engine and tranny. I carefully removed the harness from the donor, and inspected it as I went along. I think it will work fine for my needs.

 

When I restored my CJ7 7 years ago I put a Painless in it and have to say it was very easy and has not had a single issue! I will probably go with it on my 55.

 

Julie, congrats on building and documenting your own harness, you are quite the renaissance woman! Like Bobby, I too am capable of doing a harness from scratch, but after pricing out the components, especially the minimum sized spools ofdifferent colored wires for all the acessories I was planning I bit the bullet and ordered the EZWire kit. I have no regrets, the components are of the highest quality, the wire lengths are generous, and they offer all the extras I wanted: matching switches, dimmer switch, etc at realistic prices, not the rape my wallet pricing at Painless. (I made the mistake of buying the wiring book put out by Painless, and found it has very little useful info about wiring, it's just an in print infomercial about Painless and why you should buy their harness... a total waste of money!)
Wiring, even from scratch, is not difficult or fearful it's all in the planning and details.

 

I do industrial wiring also and have to say that even with access to free wire etc, I also went with EZ wire. Kinda like reinventing the wheel IMO. But hey, if you want to build your own I wouldn't rain on your parade either. If you're not electrically inclined I feel it would be to your advantage to get the EZ wire kit plus save some $ over Painless.

 

painless is a good kit. i ended up using ron francis.

 

Thanks - I appreciate the compliments.

As I mentioned, I think it's a matter of skill, confidence, and experience. I also tend to be a little overboard in the "if you want anything done right...." department.

One of the biggest things that motivated me though, was not so much the wiring itself, but having a 100% understanding of where every wire in the truck went and building a document that one could actually read. I had to take my manual to Kinkos and have it copied at 200% just to be able to see all those little lines. But mostly, my reasons were oriented toward troubleshooting. I can wire all day long, and like many things, there isn't always one emperical way to do it.

And when trying to troubleshoot someone elses wiring it's something I always find a nightmare. And most often in the restorations I have done I have found such a tangled mess of connectors, single colors of wire, things going nowhere, splices, components not protected (fuses or breakers), and "creative electrical stupidity," from previous owners that troubleshooting or line tracing is nearly impossible.

Maybe next time I'll try the newer harness just for grins. You guys are all right about one thing as well: wire is expensive and hard to find in the right quantities/colors. I've got lots left over! Enough to restore the boat!

J!