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Electrical issue

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hotskins

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Aug 9, 2020
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Location
Sanger Texas
I have a 85 w150 with 4 speed and a 318. When I bought the truck I knew it some wiring issues. Mostly with the ignition. Truck would start and run, but the person who owned it before me did some not so good re-work. No as I'm trying to make everything work as I need it. Stuff like lights, turn signals, gauges. You know, the basics. So the issue I'm finding is the more I get into the wiring, the more "fabricated" wiring I'm finding. I'm at the point where I want to just rip out all the wiring and replace it. Does anyone know of a good place to get wiring for my truck, either aftermarket or OEM. I have looked at Painless, but they don't have anything specific for my make and model truck, and I don't want to end up in the same place as I am now. Thank for any and all help.
 
What all is hacked up? The under hood wiring or under dash wiring. You will probably have to find a used harness
 
Everything under the hood was a mess. I have sorted most of that out. But it is still ugly. Under the dash, there are splices upon splices. some good, most not so much. I have been looking at a couple donor trucks, but then a part of me wants to fix those up as well. That's why I was wondering if there was an aftermarket wire harness that I could use.
 
"Painless" definitely isn't especially on a non Chevy More like "False advertising".
I also have an '85 Dodge truck... mine is 2wd with a slant6 at the moment, and it had the absolute worst hacked electrical harness I have ever seen,,, Dont get me started.
I went to the junkyard and got a harness from an 84 that was there and started over from scratch with that harness, went thru the 84 harness, untaped everything and checked over everything, repaired a few spots taht were bad from age (crimp, solder and heat shrink everything I touched) and retaped it all, works fine. Made a few upgrades within the harness while I was at it.
 
I think if I can find a donor that has a decent harness I can get, I may go that route. I'll have to look a little deeper. Most of the salvage yards that I have been to in the past act like they don't know what they have. Then want you to pay a few bucks to go take a look to see if they have what you want. Of course that's when I was building my 66 Plymouth Fury.
 
hotskins said:
I think if I can find a donor that has a decent harness I can get, I may go that route. I'll have to look a little deeper. Most of the salvage yards that I have been to in the past act like they don't know what they have. Then want you to pay a few bucks to go take a look to see if they have what you want. Of course that's when I was building my 66 Plymouth Fury.
Click to expand...
There is a 1984 D250 with mostly good wiring at the Pull-A-Part in Corpus Christi currently...it's getting picked over pretty quick though. The Engine bay wiring appears great and un-molested, the dash harness is getting cut as people do weird things at Pull-A-Part places.
 
I have an 85 2wd with the/6 (which is staying at least for now/ I have a freshened version on a stand ready to go in)
Anyway I should have taken pictures. This was by far THE worst "Past owner interference" hacked wiring harness that I have ever seen and I turn wrenches for a living.
I don't know how the a thing didn't catch fire long ago. I went junking and found the best harness I could, and completely untaped it to go thru it, and I deleted all the fusible links, I grafted in an under hood fuse box from an early 90s brand F (ranger) fuse box while I was at it to best do away with the fusible links. I had the factory service manuals in front of me as I did so. I heat shrinked crimped, and soldered every connection I made. Went with the maxi fuses in place of each former fusible link.
 
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