As important as the upkeep on maintenance, and fully operations of our vehicles go. Sometimes we break down on the trail and end of bandaging up the issues in hopes to fix it later. Well that repair becomes the permanent fix because we forgot about it, and soon enough they pile up and render it all useless. This is the situation I found myself in with my rig.
I bought this truck knowing it was needing work on the engine. And the PO showed me everything it needed, and what He done to it while he owned it. So we sealed the deal, and I towed the truck home. The engine was already apart from the PO attempting to repair, but was unsuccessful due to a medical issue.
Once I repaired the original problem, I ran into missing parts that was stolen out of the bed of the truck, like the alternator bracket or power steering pump and bracket. So I went and salvaged brackets and got the drivetrain buttoned up, but soon realized that the truck had an electrical issue from a PO swapping harnesses. Causing a major issue in the charging system, didn't have a rear harness running to the rear lights, and melted wires running through the dash with a nonfunctional ignition switch.
I am not the greatest at electrical, but I can handle my weight at work as a diesel technician. I decided to go ahead and replace it with an up to date wiring harness to get this rig ready for a planned spring trip. So after spending 30 minutes tearing out the old "harness" and switches, I begin to install the new harness.
I start by laying out the main harness on the tailgate.
Note that you can see the bed primered, the body work was started while waiting for the harness to arrive, I will do a write on this later once I finish painting.
Once the harness was laid out, I grabbed the fuse panel and bolted it in the original location, and ran all the wires through the dash and out to the proper areas the instructions called for.
Once all the wires were ran I started from the rear and worked my way forward. I build to length the connectors for all the rear lights on both sides. Once I finished the lighting section, I crawled underneath the truck to clean up the wiring and ran the fuel sender connector. This took 3hrs to do just the rear.
I then started working on the dash, installing the new switches, and connecting the heater and radio, I realized that I had to build new connectors for the steering column, and wiper motor.
Once I finished building those connectors, I started to connect everything under the dash that was pre-built to the new switches. Afterwards that left the gauge cluster harness to be built using the clusters factory connector.
The dash harness took 4 hours to connect and build to spec by following the instructions. Then I jumped upfront to the headlights and engine harness
The headlight harness took 30 minutes to cut and build to proper length. And the engine harness took 15 minutes to tie in the sensors and starting system.
This harness was built to use a 1-wire type alternator and a gm-hei distributor. So I am upgrading to the 3G alternator upgrade which will work with the 1-wire hook up, but I had to build the Ford Duraspark ignition harness from old connectors and reuse cut wires from the headlight and tailights wiring.
I installed the battery, and the truck fired to life for the first time I've owned it by a key, instead of jumping the solenoid.
All in all I still have the alternator left to install to complete this harness build, but I am totally satisfied by this product that American AutoWire offers. I should no longer have to worry about wiring issues when out on the trail now. It only took 2 days to install from start to finish, and even with no experience with building connectors, or replacing a complete harness, just about anyone can do this job on your own rig if you just follow the instructions and have the proper crimpers.
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I bought this truck knowing it was needing work on the engine. And the PO showed me everything it needed, and what He done to it while he owned it. So we sealed the deal, and I towed the truck home. The engine was already apart from the PO attempting to repair, but was unsuccessful due to a medical issue.
Once I repaired the original problem, I ran into missing parts that was stolen out of the bed of the truck, like the alternator bracket or power steering pump and bracket. So I went and salvaged brackets and got the drivetrain buttoned up, but soon realized that the truck had an electrical issue from a PO swapping harnesses. Causing a major issue in the charging system, didn't have a rear harness running to the rear lights, and melted wires running through the dash with a nonfunctional ignition switch.
I am not the greatest at electrical, but I can handle my weight at work as a diesel technician. I decided to go ahead and replace it with an up to date wiring harness to get this rig ready for a planned spring trip. So after spending 30 minutes tearing out the old "harness" and switches, I begin to install the new harness.
I start by laying out the main harness on the tailgate.
Note that you can see the bed primered, the body work was started while waiting for the harness to arrive, I will do a write on this later once I finish painting.
Once the harness was laid out, I grabbed the fuse panel and bolted it in the original location, and ran all the wires through the dash and out to the proper areas the instructions called for.
Once all the wires were ran I started from the rear and worked my way forward. I build to length the connectors for all the rear lights on both sides. Once I finished the lighting section, I crawled underneath the truck to clean up the wiring and ran the fuel sender connector. This took 3hrs to do just the rear.
I then started working on the dash, installing the new switches, and connecting the heater and radio, I realized that I had to build new connectors for the steering column, and wiper motor.
Once I finished building those connectors, I started to connect everything under the dash that was pre-built to the new switches. Afterwards that left the gauge cluster harness to be built using the clusters factory connector.
The dash harness took 4 hours to connect and build to spec by following the instructions. Then I jumped upfront to the headlights and engine harness
The headlight harness took 30 minutes to cut and build to proper length. And the engine harness took 15 minutes to tie in the sensors and starting system.
This harness was built to use a 1-wire type alternator and a gm-hei distributor. So I am upgrading to the 3G alternator upgrade which will work with the 1-wire hook up, but I had to build the Ford Duraspark ignition harness from old connectors and reuse cut wires from the headlight and tailights wiring.
I installed the battery, and the truck fired to life for the first time I've owned it by a key, instead of jumping the solenoid.
All in all I still have the alternator left to install to complete this harness build, but I am totally satisfied by this product that American AutoWire offers. I should no longer have to worry about wiring issues when out on the trail now. It only took 2 days to install from start to finish, and even with no experience with building connectors, or replacing a complete harness, just about anyone can do this job on your own rig if you just follow the instructions and have the proper crimpers.
Sent from my iPhone using OB Talk
