Rewiring Project

If I were to go with a Painless or equal wiring harness does it evey single piece of insulated copper on the Jeep? Such as all the way down to the six little seperate indicator lamps, all the sending units and such? I am just curious if there will be anything that I will have to use from old factory harness.

Thanks

 

it/they will not come terminated
this means any ends/connectors on items, alt, senders, sockets, etc, will have to be spliced/soldered in by you
they supply the wire to that point only
so don't toss your harness till your finished

 

My painless kit for my 78 Cj-7 came with all the plugs and light fixtures for the stock dash and so on. The only things I needed were for accessories such as a electric fan or fog lights. I was very impressed with the quality of the kit.

Now the generic Painless kit for the early CJ jeeps I don't know about.

 

Usually when you say Painless harness, it refers to a universal harness, like you would use in a scratch-built hot rod. A universal harness would have to be spliced in to the existing terminations, like Jim said. If there's a replacement harness available, it should have the proper terminations to be used with the clearance light harnesses, the instrument cluster lights, etc.

I recall that there's a replacement harness for the early CJ, but I didn't know about one for the '74. The Intermediates ('72-75) typically don't have a lot of aftermarket support, so I'd double check that a replacement harness is actually for your Jeep, and not for '76 and later, or '71 and earlier.

 

On a side note, pre 76 CJ's wiring is simple, to say the least. For someone with an average knowledge of automotive electrical systems, rewiring is a fairly simple propisition(Just finished a 3B from scratch in about 5 hours). I have done a number of "custom"(wow, what a great word for cheap) rewire jobs using looms from varous early auto's and trucks. This allowed me to retain the stock fuse boxes and bulkhead connectors. Many times these looms can be had for under 20$ from your local u-pick yard. I usualy pick up a couple, and use varous componants from each. I'm not trying to get you into something over your head, but it's an alternative to spending extra buck$ on a fairly simple loom.

 

I replaced the harness on my '75 CJ with a Painless kit. Most of the wires were teminated. Only had to terminate a few. The kit description is;
Factory Style CJ Replacement Harness Features:

#10110 - For 1975-86 CJ Series Jeeps. Almost every circuit on this harness is pre-terminated at both ends on this three section harness. All wires are color coded and labeled and all wire leads are pre-cut to proper lengths. Our harness uses an OEM style bulkhead connector that attaches to the bulkhead without any special brackets or modifications. The blade-type fuse block wiring is factory terminated and machine crimped. The most Painless way to wire your 75-86 CJ Series Jeep.

http://www.painlessperformance.com/webcatalog/cat-jeepharn.htm

Nice tech support too!

Bill
'75 CJ5, '45 MB, '41 "Slat Grill" MB

 

Ditto on the EZ Wiring. Very nice harness, MUCH cheaper, but same quality that I could tell.

Note.... Do NOT cut ANY wires until you have mounted the fuse block and ran the wires to their proper places. Trust me on this.....

 

bill,

i'm in the middle of the same project. i got the #10110 kit for my '75. there are a few things i need to change, most notably the terminals to change over the kit's column ignition to my jeep's dash ignition. did you do this? or change your column?

any other changes appear to be minor, as i've got the old harness laid out next to the new one.

thanks,

wally

 

thanks for setting me straight on the terminated/non-terminated issue
learn something new everyday here!