Over the weekend fighting to locate a shorted ground in my 73 and cussing the po for what I was finding I began considering a painlesss complete harness replacement. When would you say enough is enough and just replace the entire vehicle harness?
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If you have the patience and knowledge go for it. Another option would be to remove your existing harness and rebuild it. Coolerman sells the supplies and there are a ton of YouTube videos on how to do the plugs. It’ll add value, drop right in and be correct for your truck.Over the weekend fighting to locate a shorted ground in my 73 and cussing the po for what I was finding I began considering a painlesss complete harness replacement. When would you say enough is enough and just replace the entire vehicle harness?
I finally finished my 3fe conversion after fighting a rats nest cruiserparts called a conversion harness and some bad relays and efi switches. Now my original harness is shorted and as I troubleshoot I think every place I dug into the po had been there and cobbed some wires together that makes the fuses and diagrams less or non helpful. Frustrating. Check out this conversion harness.Everyone is different. For some, any rats nest is too much, for others pulling the harness (as mentioned above) is not a big deal.
More detail is needed to help answer your question. Also, there are a couple of excellent shops in the Treasure Valley where you could get some help as well as a bunch of very knowledgeable crusierheads.
ID- Treasure Valley Land Cruisers
forum.ih8mud.com
Ugh. That's crap.Check out this conversion harness.
Google search coolerman FJ40 and you will find his website. He probably has a wiring schematic for your 40. He also sells the majority of plugs, terminals and proper color wires. Removing the wiring harness from your 40 is fairly easy.I've been 'restoring' the wiring on my '63 for about a year now. Luckily the PO's mostly added their wiring and left the original in place.
The wiring diagrams in the FSM and Haynes book are pretty accurate and is a good reason to keep it original. If you can see a wire's colors
you will always know which one it is - very helpful IMO.
I would also like to see/have a color wiring diagram and a source for OEM color wires.
Thanks for the coolerman site idea. My wiring harness is fine where it is for now until the 'big' resto, that is.Google search coolerman FJ40 and you will find his website. He probably has a wiring schematic for your 40. He also sells the majority of plugs, terminals and proper color wires. Removing the wiring harness from your 40 is fairly easy.
When I repaired my 63 harness , I would sometimes have to replace most of a some of the wires . I made sure though that I could splice in the original color code so that at least the beginning and the end of each wire had the original colors showing. Like you said "if you can see a wire's colors, you will always know which one it is"I've been 'restoring' the wiring on my '63 for about a year now. Luckily the PO's mostly added their wiring and left the original in place.
The wiring diagrams in the FSM and Haynes book are pretty accurate and is a good reason to keep it original. If you can see a wire's colors
you will always know which one it is - very helpful IMO.
I would also like to see/have a color wiring diagram and a source for OEM color wires.
When 12 volts meets ground in my situation does not mean blown fuses or heat etc. With the negative battery cables disconnected from the battery I can put my negative lead of my meter on the bare negative post and the positive lead of my meter to the body/frame of my rig and get a reading of 12 volts the same as touching the positive post of the battery. The amp pull is about .09. I have isolated to the wire ppl/red wire leaving the fuse block(does not blow any fuses). Now the fun, that wire feeds a few different things but I have found several more items spliced into that circuit. So obviously there were problems in the past and the po used that circuit as a good one to use witch also means when if I put them back I am creating more problems. Some ones short cuts are now causing me grief. This all after hours and hours of tracing and cutting and testing and cutting then taping and looming a conversion harness into it. For two days it was perfect and now this. My fear is after I get this fixed then what! A new harness may give some comfort in removing the unknown and reliability questions. That said I love the idea of keeping original parts in place.Sorry to get all technical and specific about semantics... But "shorted ground"?
Having a brief background in electrical work (2 years as an apprentice electrician, before going back to college...), a short is where electricity is allowed to reach ground before it should. In an automotive electrical, generally, this is when your 12v positive connection is in direct contact with the negative (chassis / ground), hopefully blowing fuses, or else sparks, heat, fires....
And if you have multiple spots on the harness where you feel this is a risk or have been having issues with it, that's when this is "too much". If you're not sure every circuit is fused, that there is an appropriate fusible link on the battery (cause there is 6 feet of wire going through the firewall between the battery and the fuse block) and your main positive connections aren't properly insulated, it's at risk of electrical fire and needs to be.
If you are finding charred wires, melted insulation, there's a problem. I've found spots that were just poorly crimped connectors (on the white wire off the alternator...) that are quick and easy to correct so that they will properly work without tearing the whole thing apart or replacing. But it was easy to identify on mine where the PO modified it (different tape and that s***ty parts store plastic cover used). And if you see anything with really light, 16 or 18 AWG sized wires, be suspicious of them, they could be fine, wiring needs to be sized considering not only amperage but also length, smaller gauge wiring might be fine for very short lengths.
Or if lights and other accessories continually fail, though this is commonly grounding issues, where the chassis is used as a 12v negative bus and there is high resistance back to the battery due to corrosion or paint.
Being tangled, wrong colors, lots of splices, is not pretty, but can be fully functional and safe. It's really just how much a nice clean appearance matters to you. Even brand new cars are often full of unused wiring and connector under the hood where similar wiring harness are used regardless of options of different equipment in different markets. It's not a functional problem.