Make a wiring harness

So, I've been sort of toying with the idea of making my own wiring harness for a couple weeks now. My wiring looks pretty simple aside from the various connectors needed and whatnot. Has anyone attempted this before? I was thinking of just buying a fuse block and running circuit breakers in place of fuses, adding a couple relays and generally cleaning things up. As is sits I need to alter my existing harness to work with the new alt and wire up the turn signals anyhow. I know that painless and ezwire are pretty popular but I just figured it might be fun to build in some extra beef myself. Thoughts?

 

It's doable, if you're patient, ambitious, and have the know-how, but whenever I've had my head stuck up under my dash, and see the massive rope of wires taped together (from the factory), It makes me glad that I was able to buy a good, used set, on ebay.

It seems like a very time consuming task.

 

I did my own. Removed everything I did not need and wired the rest of it up.

 

Hudson, looks like we got the same year, any tips?

 

Do it one circuit at a time. I think it took me about 3 weeks of afterwork nights to complete it. I am not running a stock set up. I am running a megasquirt FI with GM Throttle Body, GM 12 SI alternator. The heater and anything that is not required to make it go and street legal has been removed. So its not quite the same as your stock wiring.

 

I'd price the wire and parts needed first - copper isn't cheap. You can probably do the whole harness in one or a few colors and that will be cheaper than a pre-made harness. Either that, or take a complete harness from a car at the pick-your-part and reuse the pieces you need.

 

The wire I got, The fittings I don't. Would there be any problems with re-using whats there? I could grab some new attachments, though I'm not too sure where to look. I'd just like to keep it simple, no sense in cluttering my Jeep up any further.

 

My wiring on my 62 looked more like spaghetti than a harness. I ripped out every bit of wiring, bought a fuse box from a salvage yard and gathered all the wire and connectors from a local O'reilly Auto Parts. There is an excellent set of diagrams on the tech page. It took me about a week. Yes it cost me about 50 bucks more than what I found from Painless. The big plus of doing it myself is I now have a harness that feeds everything on my jeep plus an additional 9 points on the fuse box for future needs. I know every inch of my harness now, what it will handle and it is waterproof as well as protected from damage.

 

You can reuse the plugs the cheesy way or the hard way. In the cheesy way, you clip the wires off short and connect to new wire with a butt connector. In the hard way, you use a dental pick to release the metal connector from the plastic shell, then pry open the connectors with needle nose pliers. You crimp new wire to the used connector, maybe solder, and slide the connector back into the shell.

 

That's not a bad idea Tim, I may end up going that way depending on the availability of the connectors locally.

Express, could you give me a rundown of the connectors you used?

 

Uh what year is your jeep??

I parted out a 75 CJ5 last year and I think I kept the stock wiring harness, I'll have to look.

 

I would recommend Waytek http://order.waytekwire.com/cgi-bin...37+FUNCPARMS+WEBCMP(S0020):01+WEBID(S0020):01 for wiring supplies and Tims method for specific connectors

 

Coby, it's a 72. The existing harness isn't horrible but if your connectors are clean it may be worth it for me.

 

Thanks kman! I checked your link, great stuff. Bookmarked for sure

 

Another alternative is to just clean up your wiring. Patiently strip out what you don't need then look at the circuits that are bad and replace as necessary, then add any that you may want. Thats what I did. I ended up running a new harness to the back of the jeep as well a wire or two to the front lights.

 

When I re-wire I used a universal type harness, When I removed the old wires I stripped some back and found the head light and tail light wires were black from oxidation nearly a foot from the the ends. Turned out most of the wiring was in the same shape especially where there was a break in the old, brittle insulation. I used dielectric grease on all the plug in connections for corrosion and so than they could be pulled apart later without damage.

 

I plan to use circuit breakers also when I rewire. I am considering mounting them on a hinged plate that I can swing down from under dash.

 

I did my Flat fender muself. Just work it out one circut at a time.

 

:iagree: I used a complete wiring harness from a 1980 Buick Regal. I went this route because I have a GM tilt column and I needed the connectors to plug into the column.

 

I got an 8 circuit fuse box basically free, and ordered the breakers today. Since it's raining today and a school holiday I rolled out some wire and started on the harness as well. Actually its been a pretty productive day for me, even got started rebuilding the Q-jet for the new 360! I think I'll just use the connectors I got and use the link from Kman to grab the odds and ends I will likely need. Adapting a harness from a newer car is tempting but it seems I have most the parts I need already.