Installing new wiring harness

I started installing a new, universal wiring harness in my 84 bronco over the Holidays. It's a 20-circuit kit from EZ-2 Wire I bought off ebay. My first question is where can I find some High-temp terminals??? The wiring size varies from 8 to 16 gauge, and the ends are not terminated. I don't want to use the regular terminals you find at every auto parts store. Those are too thin, and I've had them melt or short out before on prior projects. JSM84

I'll look for the link but in the past I've used marine terminals and been pretty happy with them.

That's a hard one Randy, most of the sites have business as usual stuff. Melting terminals though should not happen unless the wrong size terminal is being used for the application; ie. running to much current for the size of terminal selected. That is symptomatic of running too much through the line or over fusing it. I'm surprised that the company that you bought the harness from didn't supply or offer terminals that they recommend for their product. The two best companies, that I know of, that have HD terminals for their products are Ron Francis and Automotive Wiring Products in New Jersey. I rarely find what I'm looking for locally.

Any way, I looked around for links and this company has the best selection I have links to http://www.sherco-auto.com/tpms.htm

Good luck on the project,

>-

Having trouble with my intranet. Makes it hard to search or reply when it fails...

Thanks for the replies. I agree with you Seabronc, the standard solderless terminals should work. But if the crimp gets loose or shorts out, it can cause problems. My intent is to solder all connections and terminals, use heatshrink, make them weather-proof as well. I can rob some of the OEM connectors off of the factory harness, but I still need a few new ones. Looked thru my Dad's old Bowman catalog, and they have'em listed. Closest store is in Dallas, TX, if they're still in business. JSM84

Here's a link ifound to www.wiringproducts.com, it shows the various types of terminals. The hi-temp model is much thicker:

http://www.wiringproducts.com/contents/en-us/d46.html

I've USED the Ron Francis kits on two complete re-wires and I can't say enough about them. I've *completely* re-wired three trucks now, First was a Ron Francis Wireworks kit, second was a Painless Wiring kit & for the third I went back to Ron. Both kits are quality and very good but the WireWorks kit was just a notch or two higher. Anything else that I ever Re-wire will be done with one of Ron's kits. You can actually *stop* working on the re-wire for a couple of days to go on and deal with the rest of your life & when you come back & pick up all the pieces you do NOT have a stroke. That right there is worth the price of his kits. I know this doesn't really help since he's already bought another kit and is inthe middle of it but hey, what the ****. Whenever I've had to do a partial repair or just run a circuit or two I've always used marine terminals & wiring because the insulation is thicker & tougher and the terminals are a bit thicker to help deal with corrosion.

Yes, I looked long and hard at the Ron Francis kit, but SeaB or someone had a bad experience with them. Their Ford harness is also close to $500, vs the universal one i bought for $150. And even though it's a 20-circuit harness, I only need about 10 circuits for my offroad rig. Still cheaper than an 8 or 10-circuit racing harness that costs $500+. Basically, it's a fuse box, 4 sections of wiring for the engine bay, dash, steering column and rear lights. Main battery power is 8 ga. wire, hi-load circuits are 10/12 ga, and the rest is 14/16 ga. Since I don't need turn signals. pwr locks or a dome light, I pulled all of the unneeded wiring out of the harness this past week. Stuck that back in the box in case a future owner wants to add it back in (Not that I'd sell this beast anytime soon).

I figured I need a cirucit for iginition, electric fuel pump, elec. choke, windshield wiper, lights, gauges, a CB radio, electric fan, aux air compressor (future add-ons). The factory wiper switch and 4-prong plug for the wiper motor are in great shape, so I've separated them from the original wiring harness. I'll also rob the connectors for the sending units for oil and water, using aftermarket gauges. Also have a realy kit for the fuel pump, still need to find a suitable switch or switch panel for that and the start button, main power and ACC. I mounted the new fuse box under the center of the dash, on a bracket bolted to the firewall.

The hi-temp connectors I'm looking for are still different from the ones shown in that link. I'd like to find some brass terminals that allow you to solder a wire to it, rather than that crimp-on type. JSM84

Picked up some hi-temp terminals made by Noble at a local hardware store, good to go on those. Also bought a nice switch panel off ebay for $60:



Should fit just right in the center dash bexel below the rollcage dash bar, JSM84

I love that panel Randy. If you meant me by SeaB, not so. I love the Ron Francis stuff. In fact the only place that I have had a real problem with is Fordfuelinjuction, not the quality or what he has, just that he is a -100 for customer service. Extremely long time to ship, if ever, and does not respond to a simple request for status. Too bad too, since he has some great stuff on the shelf.

>-

I have to second the recommend, if you've ever wired a truck from scratch with nothing but spools of wire the Ron Francis stuff is a Godsend. You can actually stop in the middle of the job to get on with your life for a few days and then go back to wiring it and you will NOT have stroke. Try stopping in the middle of the job when you're doing it from scratch, I dare ya. I've installed two of the full kits and a couple/three partial circuit kits and don't have anything but praise for the product. I think the way each individual wire is labeled for it's entire length is probably the best part of the kit. When you're installing it and years afterwards there's *never* any confusion about where the wire you're holding onto goes or what it's for. I admit they may not be the cheapest kit available but I think anyone who has one will agree it's money *well* spent, and I know that when I installed my first kit they never hesitated once to put a tech on the 800-help line they have and the guy cleared up my problem in two or three sentences *and then* gave me his extension & invited me to call him back if I was still unclear about it once I got back to the job. After getting a REAL close look at the wiring on my 88' while doing this tranny thing I'm starting to think I'll soon be in the market for my 3rd kit from them. Kind of a moot point since the wiring is a done deal, just tossing my $.02

Cool beans, I can't recall who had a problem with them. the kit I have does have printing along the wires for each circuit, too. That does make it easier than having to reference wiring by colors. I'll admit that I'm the worst person to do electrical work, and the old harness i pulled from the Bronco fills up a large cardboard box. It's downright intimidating. But once I started pulling out unwanted wires from the new univ. harness, it was much easier to work with. the stock harness has alot of extra junk on it that I just don't need for an offroad rig. The factory electric choke set-up is a joke, not one of Ford engineer's better days I must say. Back to the switch panel, i was surprised to find that it came with it's own wiring harness, too. My last parts run will be to get a few gauges and stick them on the dassh somewhere. JSM84

Shoot, I remebered that i have some gauges and a tach in the 86 Bronco!!! the mini-tach is made by Sun-Pro, with a 4 wires coming out of it:

Green goes to the coil

Red goes to 12V power source on fuse block

Black goes to ground under dash

White goes to 12V power from an under-dash light bulb wire.

I'm not sure if I need that white one or not, maybe someone can answer that ? for me.

there's also a 3-gauge pod mounted under the dash with 2-1/4" gauges:

Mechanical oil pressure

Water temp

Battery charge (electrical)

Don't know what brand they are, just that they're short-sweep and kinda hard to read.

I found a pic of how they were mounted in the 86:



I have a bigger gauge pod in the 79 F-150 that i may rob off of it instead, or prolly get new gauges once i figure where they will go.

Installing a custom dash? I've seen a lot of nice ones at Hot rod shows.

http://www.nordskogperformance.net/

http://www.dolphingauges.com/shark%20gauges.html

http://www.classicinstruments.net/

http://www.speedometershop.com/

http://fpmmetals.com/

http://www.autometer.com/

Found a few but couldn't find the ones I wanted. Oh well :blush:

>-

Thanks for the links, I've been searching gauges and dash set-ups for the past several weeks. I plan to keep the factory dash and instrument panel in place for now, and run the 3-gaquge pod underneath it like in that pic. The dash bar on the rollcage runs right above the steering wheel and all but obscures anything behind it on the stock cluster. In retrospect, it would 've given me more room to work with if i took the whole dash out, then built the rollcage, then fabbed a flat custom dash panel for the gauges and switches. Seems like there's almost two feet of space from the face of the dash to the firewall. Removing it would allow me to move the down tubes for the cage forward, so they wouldn't be right at the edge of the door openings. JSM84



BTW, I did remove the cage to make it easier to work on the dash and wiring.

Justshootme84 said:

Click to expand...

Trucks looking good, Randy. Can't wait to see it in person. You gonna have it done in time to make the mega-run at Barnwell Mountain?

Roadkill said:

Trucks looking good, Randy. Can't wait to see it in person. You gonna have it done in time to make the mega-run at Barnwell Mountain?

Click to expand...

That's doubtful, since I didn't get to work on it much over the Holidays (too cold). I'm also working on installing all new brake lines and hoses at the same time, but nearly done with that. There's prolly two dozen little odds and ends to finish up before I even do a practice run here on the farm. If you ever have a free Sat/ Sun to help out, let me know. JSM84

Justshootme84 said:

That's doubtful, since I didn't get to work on it much over the Holidays (too cold). I'm also working on installing all new brake lines and hoses at the same time, but nearly done with that. There's prolly two dozen little odds and ends to finish up before I even do a practice run here on the farm. If you ever have a free Sat/ Sun to help out, let me know. JSM84

Click to expand...

I'm free most weekends now that I've got most of the work around the house done after the move. Give me a call or a PM next time your up here. I even got to do a little wheelin today (finally). I posted some stuff about it in the M&G and Trip section.

TX460bronco, Skittles and BigT2317 came out Sunday and helped me out with the wirings. Made a hella lot of progress. Enough to get the motor to run for a short time (YEE-HAW!!!). I'm still stoked from hearing the beast rumble. I had planned to use a master toggle switch on the panel to control the main power, then run the individual circuits off of it. The panel has a push-type starter button and 3 aux toggles. One is dedicated to the electric fuel pump, with the relay kit wired to it. Thanks to TX460bronco, he figured out the system for the fusebox and how it's wired up. It has three separate circuits: ignition, accessories and key-on. Similar to a regular key switch on the column.

My question now is whether or not to run three, 12-ga power wires together to the master power switch, or change that up. I'm don't want to run anything thru the steering column, as it's a pita to hook the key switch up and the harness's plugs are made for a GM column. I'm worried that the main toggle switch on the custom panel will not be able to handle the current. Maybe need to run it thru a relay as well? Or a separate key switch? JSM84

JSM,

YO!

Nice job!

The tach's white lead is for the lamp

I'd run a Bosch relay

Also, in many Broncos with a auto tranny, there is a clutch blank in da firewall for a clutch - I drilled thru it to add a grommet for wiring w/connectors on.

You also may have an unused grommet behind parking brake, along crpet/or mat

Miesk5, thanks for your help. The HEI dizzy has a terminal for the tach, which the whie wire in the harness plugs into. That goes to the fuse block, then another "tach" wire to the gauge. That would be the red wire on my SunPro tach (12v power). I prolly won't use the "light" wire unless I run lighted gauges, too. AS for the Bosch relay, where would you put it? I already have a fusable link on the primary battery power going to the fuse block, and a relay kit with a circuit breaker on the fuel pump. I'm totally dumb when it comes to wiring, just learning enough as I go along. JSM84