Wiring troubles (1 Viewer)

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Joined
May 26, 2003
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I just bought my 72 FJ40 4 weeks ago and i am finding dozens of wires that are connected to nothing. I purchased it from a guy who did a chevy 350 conv. so a lot of the wiring is jerry-rigged which makes it hard to decypher whats what. &nbsp:Does anyone have any helpful advice?
 
get yourself a wiring diagram and start tracing everything before you end up having a fire!

You need lots of patients to do wiring. But is satisfying at the end with a neat job
 
I agree with Niner about the fire, that is dangerous. I don't know that a wiring diagram will do you any good with the loose wires. If the PO of yours was like the PO of mine he just cut and rewired at will. I still find wires that go no where. I cleaned it up pretty good a few weeks ago.

What I did was got a cheap little tester (the kind with the handle that lights up) and tested every wire that I found to see what was hot (don't forget to test with key on accessory also). I then chased most of them down to either a splice or the fuse box and disconnected them. Takes a while but it's worth it. I was having all kinds of issues with hot wires blowing fuses and crappy grounds. The wiring is a joke.

Oh BTW, if you don't have a stereo, that mount makes a good ground point when testing wires.

Good luck
 
If your wiring is totally shot, I have a brand new replacement wiring harness from Painless for sale. I bought it for my 40, but was able to figure out my problems. I paid $370, will sale for $325 shipped. Let me know if you are interested.
-Brian.
 
My '69 was a mess when I picked it up, it had the wiring badly hacked, been rolled twice, lost the roof and sat in an impound yard for two years (with no roof ), the stereo, CB etc. were striped out by the yard before I bought it. I had to remove the wiring harness completely to fix it, and as it needs full brakes, new roll cage, windshield... I repaired what I've got for now. Get a wiring diagram so you can figure out what those cut wires were supposed to go to. I am planning on installing a Painless harness ($300-$400) when I get to that point. I've done a couple on hot rods, they are worth the price in saved time and parts over doing it wire by wire.
 
If you are seeing warning signs of a bad wiring job or you have spagetti dangeling out of your dash...........do something about it soon........electrical fires can happen pretty quick, they're really scarry when they set a-blaze right next to the passenger seat ( ejector seat :-X)...or anywhere in the vehicle! I had carbon monoxide poisoning from being in the vehicle barely long enough to bring it to a rolling stop and grab the extinguisher.....maybe 30-40 seconds........... you can get hurt really bad

I know that this is totally common sense, I don't want to insult anyones intelligence....but e-fires really suck and I'm still really paranoid of weird smells in the FJ.
God bless.....and knock on wood!
 
it doesnt hurt anything to leave wires from painless harness unconnected with a butt connector on the end and tape does it? im thinking it doesnt and have done this with mine in the event i need more juice somewhere in the future. i imagine your talking about bare end wires, right?
 
regarding your question jeff, did he put in a chevy harness?
find out what he put in and get a diagram for it as far as telling what the wires are supposed to be hooked up to.
 
To prevent risk of burning wires, it is good practice to consider
a. amp-rating of a wire; required amp-rating depends on the device you connect;
b. always use a fuse as close to the battery as possible. Or connect after the fuse-box.
c. make sure the amp-rating of the fuse doesn't exceed the amp-rating of the wire.

Ton
 

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