Painless wiring harnesses?
 

After digging deep into the electrical woes in the Fury, I decided i need a new wiring harness, as there are countless breaks and shorts.

Painless do a wiring harness designed for 1966-76 Chrysler muscle cars, I'm thinking it should be fairly easy to adapt this to a 64!

What changes if any would there be from 64 to 66? From what I can tell the ignition, alt, and other major electrical parts remained the same, did anything significant change?

or would the painless universal harness for non GM dash mounted ignition be better?

Wiring can be a snake-pit. if that were my car ...I would only put a package on a car that it was designed for.

TRY picking up a wiring harness off of say eBay.

Sadly Doc I can't afford the $1500 for a reproduction harness, and a used harness may contain a larger snake pit than the one I have. The painless harness I can get for $250 thru work, and it's in stock locally. With a 4 day long weekend ahead, I may be able to get the Fury on the road in a few more days.

1500$ for a harness ? ... who is that vulture ??... that is ridiculous !

Year one and their Mopar harness supplier M&H, $650 for the dash harness, $500 for the engine harness and $400 for the rear harness, $1500 for the set!

And I thought the Painless kits were expensive at $400, but we get them at cost where I work so I only paid $250. And with the painless I get get a nice modern 12 circuit fuse box, which beats the 5 circuit one that came stock!

I'll keep the original harness just incase i want to fix it up and go back to stock at a later point in time!

IF this were me ...I would pull your harness out and go over it with a fine-tooth-comb. Replace any bad wires and make sure the connections are clean.

if it was straight forward it would be advertised as suit 64.

Well guys, I Know the best route would be to get a 64' specific harness, but the $1500 price tag is a no can do, guess thats one disadvantage with having a pre 66' car.

Fixing the harness I have now may cost almost the same, as every wire looks like it needs replacing. The harness in the engine bay is soaked in gas, it looks like at one point in time there was a fuel leak around the carb and the fabric sheathing acted like a wick. Needless to say all the plastic coatings on the wires are so far gone they need replacing, I'm shocked the car hasn't burst into flames. The fuse box is a nightmare there are a dozen signs of shorts, burnt wires etc within 6 inches of the box, and don't even ask about the fire wall connector! Seriously this car should have exploded before now! :)

I had painless universal non-GM kit sent to my work so I could look at it, it is actually a well put together piece of kit! I'll let you know how the install goes as i'll be doing it on sunday/monday.

WHY would fixing the harness cost the same ? .. IF you are going to do-it yourself ? ... Just buy a BUNCH of spools of wire and go-for-it.

12 circuit fuse box $50, Wiring loom $50, 18 pin firewall connector $80, 14 & 10 guage wire, 8 colours 50ft lengths $200 to $400, heat shrink, misc pigtails connectors etc! $50. Labour 12 to 20 hours to peg-board and mfg a harness from scratch, since I charge out my labour at work at $95 I'm lucky I not charging myself for this job! :)

But you get the idea why a painless kit is so much more attractive than repairing what's there, or replacing with OEM. And I do this type of thing for a living, just on much larger and sometimes simpler equipment, and have rebuilt a half dozen classics before, but this is my first Mopar and first major electrical issue, I figured after repairing the electrics on a 46' Ford, 72' MG, 58' & 77' Triumph and a 66' Jag, the last four all British, all with a nasty reputation for electrical faults, that a 60's Plymouth would not be that hard. But I guess the myth about the British wiring, is just that, a 'myth'

Thanks for the input Guys, I would like to do it the ways you have suggested, and I do see the merit in them, but deadlines and money dictate a different route!

Oppps ... now THAT is a helleva' grocery list ! I am glad that I have never had to do all that.

HOW ABOUT this ?.... look for someone parting out a 63-65 car.

Good luck with it.

The install is going great, I'd be done except for one small thing. It's so hot right now I can only work at it for an hour before going in to cool down!

Should be done tomorrow!

Glad it's going good. I've rewired a jeep and a 41 Dodge from scratch and they were a PIA to do. I have a 63 Chevy to rewire and I bought a Universal kit, Thats the only way to go unless like you said you pay the high dollars for a repro. These kits have the wires marked and color coded which makes it easier.

Hey '64,

I'm just beginning the restoration/modification to my '64 Fury and was considering the Painless harness as well, so PLEASE keep your thread alive with details concerning the installation as well as any pitfalls you encounter.
BTW - Did you use the GM column ignition or the dash mount?

Good luck!

What is the kit # ?

Well the install is done (99% anyways)

Everything is working fine except for a few minor things, first with the low beams on, the dash high beam indicator light is on, and when the high beams are on the indicator light is off.
Also when the lights are on, either head lights or park lights both dash turn indicators are on (not flashing) they flash when the turn signal are in use.
And I have front and rear park lights when the light switch is in park light mode (no headlights), but only rear park lights when the headlights are on.

I used kit#10102 and replaced the stock headlight switch with painless #80152, although any 3 position GM switch will do!

The kit is actually very easy to install, but plan on at least 3 full days, and save and reuse the OEM pigtails where you can.

Hey '64,
You've got two classic British cars and you're having difficulty with the wiring on your Fury? With those two cars I'd think you'd be the Yoda of wiring!

Wondering if you have any idea for the cause of your current "mixup" in lighting?
Also, I've seen the term "pigtail" used before when discussing harnesses but I'm not sure I know exactly what you mean; can you explain?

Thanks

A pigtail is the electrical connector/socket, usually a male and female.

British cars have very simple wiring, the myth about the electrics being hard to fix is just that, a myth. Having said that, the quality of the wiring, switches and connectors is utter crap. They are not hard to fix, just that you have to fix them often!

I think my current lighting mix-up is due to the front marker lights maybe being wired wrong and same with the foot high beam switch, I'll work on those in the morning!

p.s. Happy 4th of July to all you Americans out there!

I remember working on a friends TR-4 many years ago and remember it being somewhat of a "nest", but that may have just been his.

I thought that's what a pigtail was referring to, but now my question is this: don't factories use a series of different and specialized connectors, most of which have a spur to hold them in the plug itself? If so, what are you using in their place or have you found a source for original style connectors?

Hope you're enjoying the 4th as well: I'm spending mine searching for quarter panels!

The 4th is just another work day for me, I live in Canada, we celebrate on the 1st!

Keep the connectors for the tail, head and front lights, and those for the dash and turn signals, the rest you can just use spade connectors, you can get alot of reproduction parts from Yearone. They have some pre 66' parts in the 66' onwards section, although they are expensive.

All the lighting issues are gone, just buttoned up the dash and tied up the last wire, just have to figure out why she's not stating, ballast resistor maybe or ignition switch, both of which are original and 44 years old!

Looking back, maybe the $1500 repro wiring harness would have be the fastest and simplest route, bit not the cheapest! The Painless only wins out due to it's price, but if I had to pay someone to install it, I would have coughed up the money for the correct harness!

Can we assume that it is cranking over then?

Sorry my bad for not describing the issue. :p

When you turn the key to the start position she cranks and catches, but when you let the key slip back into the run position she dies, like there is a spark in the start position but no spark in the run position.

My money would be on the ballast resistor.
also its easy to change and cheap.

I got hold of a Painless tech on the phone, I needed to put a 8amp 100PIV diode on the wire from the ballast resistor to the starter relay and jump the ING1 and ING2 terminals at the ignition switch, the diode prevents a current going from the coil to the stater motor, engaging it.

I didn't have a 8amp 100PIV diode the biggest I had was a 6amp 50PIV so I tried it with that and it works! The beast is alive again. I will replace the 6am diode with the correct 8amp one before I drive her anyware!

Now with that issue out of the way, time to move on the the next one!

Thanks for the help guys!

Mike

Hey 64,
What distributor are you running in your car, a factory points setup?

I'm running factory points atm! I would like to switch to electric but that will be next year, for now running is good enough!

Figured you still had the points setup in it.
I've got an old distributor in my warehouse: if it's electronic do you want it?