New wiring harness...

[marvin2]

How many of you have completely re-wired your trucks during its restoration? I am thinking about it for mine seeing as how my current wiring is a rats nest and I want to upgrade most of my electronic parts. I was looking at Painless harnesses, but looks like they start at $700....yikes. What have you guys done? Looks like Summit has a universal harness for about $200...would this be a better bet? Thanks!

[rcsn2001]

hey man,
i'm in the same boat you are, look just below your thread.
If ya really want a painless harness, check out this guys site:
http://www.rjays.com/Painless/pain-fordpu-01.htm

Its sounds like a real nice deal, its just still a little too much green for me to drop right now.

[Roadrunner351w]

Check this one out just put it in my truck and it was real easy to lay out and install about a good day and a half and it as finished. and the price is right to $135 and there is currently three of them there for that price

http://shop.ebay.com/?_from=R40&_trksid ... Categories

[fordman]

copied from a previous thread.

one thing to consider when buying one of those new types of harnesses. is that the color codes won't match the schematics. so if you ever have a problem you are on your own tracing the wires with the original schematics. you have to draw them out on your own as you install them. that is what i read here anyway. the only plus side i have heard is that you can get extra circuts for big radios and other accessories for your truck. but that can also be done with your old harness by getting a larger fuse box to convert your old fuse box in your truck.

[marvin2]

I thought I had heard that the Painless harnesses match stock color and diagrams. I could see the universal harnesses not matching up, but the year specific painless harness are supposed to be stock replacements, right?

Still, the difference between $130-$200 and $600-$700 is almost too big of a jump to make just to keep the stock wiring colors. I think you could make notes on your wiring diagram for the new colors and call it a day.

[marvin2]

Check this one out just put it in my truck and it was real easy to lay out and install about a good day and a half and it as finished. and the price is right to $135 and there is currently three of them there for that price

http://shop.ebay.com/?_from=R40&_trksid ... Categories

Roadrunner...Did this harness cover everything for your truck? Just the fact that they are calling it a "mini" harness concerns me a little bit. Did you have to re-use any part of your original harness?

[Roadrunner351w]

Yes it covered everything then some. I have a bunch of connections for future upgrades like Elec. Win.,Door locks, electric fans, fuel pump, cruise control. also if you are still using the old starter relay the wires are there for it as well. the only thing I ran into is there is one wire on the light switch that the harness don't connect to and that is the Green.Red stripe wire. But I haven't found yet where i need that wire. Also the wires going from the wipers to the wiper motor leave them there and the wires from the heater switch to heater motor leave them in place as well. other than that everything connects right up and all the wires on the painless harness are label about every 6" apart as to where they go. Also fordman is right they don't totally match the existing wiring color code but thye are close and if you look at your old diagrams if you do have a problem and go to the spot and see what color the new harness wire is it is simple to trace down. Hope this helps.

[marvin2]

other than that everything connects right up and all the wires on the painless harness are label about every 6" apart as to where they go

I got confused for a second here.... You said the wires are labeled on the painless harness, do you mean they are labeled on the EZ harness you installed? Just want to make sure b/c I might be spending $135 really soon...

[Roadrunner351w]

Every wire coming out of the fuse box has a label on it as to where it goes and the labels are spaced about 6" apart all the way down each wire. So no matter how you cut the wire there is a label still on as to what it goes to.sorry if I confused you.
I had a hole lot of problems from day one with my existing factory harness and a couple Sunday's ago was the final straw when the harness smoked every time I turned on the left blinker so I replaced the harness with $135 harness and I am really satified with how smooth everything went on the new install.It is well worth the money

[tybob81]

Go with the painless harness its well worth the money to have the right color coded wires. They should be around $500.00 in Jegs or Summit. I have installed 3 of them in 67-77 F100's. I can have one done now in about 5 hrs!!