Painless Wireing Kit.Installation

[worldsmysterie]

I wanted to know how hard those kits are to install. On a scale 1-10. Im not every good, when it comes to electrical stuff. I Want one of these kind of bad just to have my wiring up to date. I would be doing this myself
so i want to know good and well if i can handle it. thanks

[seattle67]

Oh man, that is a hard question for us to try and answer for you.

I installed a painless harness on my 36 Chevy street rod and it took me about 2 weekends to do it. It can be done much faster then that but I really took my time as I am one who prefers to have as few wires visible a possible, so I was getting real creative on how I ran the wires. And the wires you could see I spent a lot of time looming up nice and pretty.

I found it to be technically very simple, but here's the thing, I'm an electrician, and though I normally work on ships, it was still a huge advantage having an electrical background.

I do believe that most people, with any mechanical skills, can install a painless harness. Just take your time, read the instructions, take your time, call their tech support if you get stuck, and did I mention ...... TAKE YOUR TIME!

And if you have a friend who happens to be an electrician, have him give you a hand. (We do anything for beer)

Just mount the fuse panel where you want it and then pull all the wires where they are supposed to go. But leave everything loose until you are sure you have the correct wire at the correct spot, and that you are happy with the routes you have ran the wires. Once you are sure of all that, start securing the wires, working from the fuse panel out. If you screw up, just cut your ty-raps and re-run the wire. And what ever you do, don't cut any wires until you are 100% sure it is where it is supposed to be and you are happy with the route and the way it looks.

And just incase I forgot to say it, take your time. This isn't something you want to rush.

If its something you really want to do, then go for it, you can do it.

[worldsmysterie]

thanks seattle67, Im going to tacle it after i get the cab and the new engine in. thanks again.

[Nausea]

For reference, I'm putting in an American Autowire kit - its the one LMC sells. I thought it'd be a bit more 'drop-in' for our trucks, but it's just basically a universal kit. Its actually pretty well documented - the real trick on any kit is .... as mentioned ... take your time and do a thorough job making up your connectors and mapping out the exact function/pinout of each dash switch. Read all the instructions provided carefully... may find less of a need to refer to the old harness schematic since a lot will be simplified. You won't need to worry about the wiper system much as it has a dedicated pigtail to the switch. just 2 or 3 pins left to hookup to new harness (power and washer).

That said, since I'm not re-using the original gauges (so I gave up on mapping the old harness), perhaps somebody can shed some light on whats involved. Does the onboard voltage regulator work as expected, or is there some other section of the harness that has to be re-used/copied?

[rjewkes]

I've been thinking of finjding a 92 f150 with EFI 302/AOD and moding what needs modded for my truck.

wich has a 302/C4 combo now.


I thought part of solving the problem of wiring up the control box could be handled by swapping the whole harness. adapting it to work with the current switches and accessories and removing any unused circuits.

[fordman]

some colored wire on a roll sounds like what some of those kits are if you have to put your own connectors on for them to work. sure they throw in a free fuse box. maybe i should start selling kits like that.

[Nausea]

Yeah, Fordman! None of the wire ends are terminated - which is ok for me as I wanted bullet connectors on everything for ease of service/troubleshooting. The major harness portions are pre-wired with plugs... like the firewall connectors, etc.
Kinda wish somebody made a nice *exact* replacement type harness for bumps. But I guess that'd take part of the fun out it