Painless Wiring Harness Install

[workingdog]

Okay, so more info for anyone coming to look. Since I'm separating the brake from turn, there's no need to keep the front and back turns separate, so I double them up into one of the green/yellow, green/orange outputs from the turn signal switch. The painless flasher won't work right with the LED lights I have, so I'm going to have to replace that.

To make the hazard work, I'm running wires from the turn signal indicators and the output side of the brake switch to the 3 pole hazard toggle.

There's really nothing toyota left of the wiring, except the turn signal switch - which I've neutered.

 

[workingdog]

So, the first thing I got 'finished' was the tail lights

I decided to go with WeatherPack and boy do I remember why I hate weatherpack. the two sets of 4 wire connectors took 2 hours that felt like two weeks. I bought the fancy ratcheting crimp tool and it's still a pain in the ass. Now, I've got to do 7 more for the controls in the dash, 2 more for the gauge cluster, and 1 each for the headlight cluster, and probably one for the ignition. So, many more hours of fun with the ratchet tool ahead of me.

At least it looks good. The Easter colored wires coming out of the loom are all the extra wires that I probably should have stripped out of the loom before I put it in - there's dome light, trunk light, power antenna, fuel sending unit (which I already have). they may be useful. I'm sure I'll need +12 back there at some point and the antenna wire will let me run one more switched lead (lights?) if I want to. So, I'll trim them, put in them powerbraid, and zip tie them up.

Paineless' powerbraid is great stuff, I'm sold on it.

 

[workingdog]

Okay, so many many hours in the car, but I'm getting close. Finally tackled the gauge cluster last night.

Now I have three weatherpacks (I hate weatherpacks) ready to connect to the dash. Now I have to do the same weatherpacks in the dash.

I've replace almost every inch of write in the rig. The only remaining original harness is the one for the wipers. New harness to both tail lights and new harness to both headlights.

I really liked these

The uninsulated barrel connectors and heat shrink were the best. You can get a really good connection with a good ratcheting crimp pliers and it creates a low profile junction that you can fit into the painless loom. I also loved the painless powerbraid, really easy to work with.

I must have used 1,000 zip ties. Despite the hours I spent prepping the harness, there were still several times I had to pull a wire out of one loom and insert into another. But, it's all pretty neat and tidy - and the fire danger is greatly reduced.

 

[Vandal FJ]

So if you were to do it again, you wouldn't use the Weatherpack? Or is Weatherpack just an unfortunate pain in the butt that must be done?

 

[workingdog]

At this point, I'd look at some of the other options that are out there. I did end up reducing the number I used to the minimum. One at each corner front and back, and the ones for the gauges, but I had planned on using more to make it modular, but I gave up on that.

 

[badsamaritan]

Weatherpaks shouldn't be that big of a PITA, I use them all the time for stuff and it's definitely more time, but shouldn't take but a few minutes to do a 4 pin connector. I use a hand crimper because I also hated the mechanical one. I can send you a link if you're interested

 

[Vandal FJ]

That would be great! Always nice to have options.

 

[workingdog]

My trouble is I either get the pin on and it pulls out when I’m putting it in the housing, or, the crimping process has deformed the pin and it won’t go in the housing. That one drives me crazy as I often can’t tell why it won’t go in.

 

[badsamaritan]

After the wire is stripped, I like to crimp the boot portion next, I usually bend the tabs around the boot with my finger then get it in the crimper. After that I'll do the terminal section, making sure to leave the tabs closest to the boot section untouched so they can stop the terminal once it's inserted in the housing.

It sounds like you need to try a new crimper, I ditched the ratcheting one as well because I couldn't get it crimped right. I'll try and get in the garage and snap a pic of mine.

 

[workingdog]

I do the same thing, pinch the boot first, then do the connection. I'm having better luck by straightening the body of the terminal after each crimp. And, I'm going back with little pliers and making sure the crimp is completely done. Then, when I go back to the boot, I'm having to work it a bit to make sure it's very round and not flattened out and therefore too wide. All that seems to be working. Did 2 3x and 1 6x connector last night and all but one went in and clicked.

 

[workingdog]

So, I'm pretty much done. Thanks to everyone for all the help along the way. There were a few more interesting challenges. Such as, the wires I chose to go from the led light bar to the buzzer (so it will buzz when I leave the light bar on when I turn the rig off) and the wire I used for the day time running lights were the same color. So, I hooked the output of the led light bar switch up to switched power so that when I turned the LED light bar on, I back powered the ignition and the fuel pump fired up. Took me a while to figure that out. And the HAM unit is now mounted in the way of a defroster hose - so I'm going to have to sort that out. But, surprisingly, as I went through the individual systems, everything worked - that was a pleasant surprise.

All in all, I was very happy with the Painless harness. The manual is good. I went back to it over and over again as it's not until you're hooking up the horn that you really need to understand that its a negative ground that runs a relay. The printing on the wires is essential.

I did wire nut everything together first, confirmed it functioned, then cut to length, put in loom, and tucked up out of the way. That prevented more than a few unnecessary splices and tearing of hair.

I settled on the bare uninsulated barrel(butt) connectors and heat shrink tubing as the best connection and the lowest profile connection (for fitting in loom). I tried the low temperature solder connectors that are out there, look cool, but I was never happy with the connection when I was done. Where I couldn't use the uninsulated barrel connectors I used standard butt (or spade, or ring) connectors with heat shrink wrap already on. All the old, s***ty, butt connectors with just plastic around it are gone. I had to buy several boxes of good connectors, heat shrink tubing, painless powerbraid loom, electrical tape (which I didn't use a lot of - except the white electrical tape which I used to label everything in the beginning and then slowly removed as things were finally connected) and lots and lots and lots of zip ties.

There is no Toyota wiring left (except the wiper harness). And I have a spreadsheet translating painless wires to use in my rig. So, between the manual and that spreadsheet, I should be able to figure it out. There's no usable schematic any more. And maybe I should get some software and make one before I forget too much of what I did.

 

[mrboatman]

Nice work !
JP

 

[GLSisk]

So, here's the painless harness reworked and ready to go in. Most of the wire runs had to be relocated into new groups.

View attachment 1927533

I bet your wife liked that, ha-ha. (Incidentally, that comment was in reference to shot you took of what appeared to be the wiring harness all over the dining room table.) Looks like you did an awesome job. I'm knee deep in the same situation, using Kwik Wire harness and have found that both companies assume a fair amount of mental telepathy skills from their customers, vis-a-vis knowing what the author(s) of the manuals meant to say but didn't.

 

[workingdog]

I bet your wife liked that, ha-ha.

Exactly why I have no wife.

 

[GLSisk]

Exactly why I have no wife.

Ha-ha. I can see how that would simplify things. Awesome job and enjoyed the write-up.

 

[James Madigan]

Painless wiring SUCKS!!!!!

 

[workingdog]

Painless wiring SUCKS!!!!!

Someone has an opinion