i instaleld my aaw for my 67. i am pretty much a full retard when it comes to wiring . the only thing i know how to use is a test light and that was from googling it. i am also not very good at fixing cars and am no expert. i installed mine and everything was in after 10 hours a day and 5 days. well worth it would i pay no..because now if something went wrong i am very familiar with the lettering on the wires which help you hook stuff up.

I've been kinda quite on this thread since it seems that you and many guys would rather spend a lot of money than a lot of time.  However, I'm with James W here as I have built my own wiring harnesses for many years.  The advantages have been well documented here but I will add a few.

If you are adding lots of accessories even the high zoot kits will need some additional help to get what I consider proper power distribution.
This fuse panel is directly below my glove box and protects the power windows, power mirrors and door locks, alarm system, antenna, radio, Sirius XM, heater blower, AC system, instrument lights,
B/U lights, wipers, power lumbar pumps, turn sigs, E-flasher, cruise control, and three power points.


If a circuit should get into trouble, it should not cause failure of other equipment or cause a meltdown.

One of the things I absolutely believe in is removing load from the stock switches.  The ignition switch originally carried all  of the accessory load through a single set of contacts.  The newer cars have stacked switches with many contacts dividing the load but that's not easily done in a classic so I do the next best thing.

On my 66 with EFI I built a custom power distribution box that provides "Always Hot" power through a fused circuit to the cabin, two relay switched 40amp accessory circuits, fused and relay switched head lights and horn, and all of the usual EFI relays and protected power circuits.  This box was built using common parts from suppliers I have found on the web.  Yes it's ugly and I plan to do something nicer some winter.  It does have a cover that makes it a bit prettier.


The neatest thing about the DIY approach is that you can make it fit your needs and run the wires where you desire...not where Lee though they should go.

The main legs of my forward harness run under the fenders and just poke through where needed.  The engine harness comes through the f-wall directly behind the engine.  All of this goes a long way toward keeping the engine compartment less cluttered.








It isn't show quality and never will be.  But, one of my friends said, "it looks like it came from the factory that way."  Good enough for me.



If you should decide to go it alone I'll be happy to provide a list of suppliers as well as some things I've learned and an easy cheap way to label your wires.  And speaking of wires, most guys will go to Auto Zoo or O' Really? to get wire.  It will pass the current but if you plan to make solder joints you need the better stuff.  I use GLX insulated wire from Allied Cable.  It will take the soldering heat without melting the insulation and really isn't that much more expensve.  Really pisses me off when I put on a piece of heat shrink to cover a splice, then the insulation crawls back farther than the tubing will reach.  No problem with good wire.

I'm not an expert and I have learned much from James W, Wsinsley (Now theres a whizz), Bob E and others here.  And I'm sure that if you decide to DIY you can find plenty of help here.  If you are just going with EFI and otherwise stock, you can do your own forward harness that will plug & play pretty easy and it will have more features, better circuit protection, will fit the car better, cure some of the know stock problems, and likely be cheaper than anything you could buy.  And...you'll learn that warin' ain't nuthin' to be skeered of.  If you don't already know that.

Just sayin'.

BB
 

Absolutely.  Looks like it grew there.

5 years ago, installed a painless wiring system on my 1968   no problems at all.
I am not electrician, just take your time, I photo copied the manual hung all the sheets on the wall and marked them off as I installed them,someone said they bought a painless system that they had to cut lots of wiring off for power windows ect, the system I bought from painless only have extra for electric fan, just tucked in side of some loom. Just my thoughts

Bullet Bob wrote:

I've been kinda quite on this thread since it seems that you and many guys would rather spend a lot of money than a lot of time.  However, I'm with James W here as I have built my own wiring harnesses for many years.  The advantages have been well documented here but I will add a few.

If you are adding lots of accessories even the high zoot kits will need some additional help to get what I consider proper power distribution.
This fuse panel is directly below my glove box and protects the power windows, power mirrors and door locks, alarm system, antenna, radio, Sirius XM, heater blower, AC system, instrument lights,
B/U lights, wipers, power lumbar pumps, turn sigs, E-flasher, cruise control, and three power points.


If a circuit should get into trouble, it should not cause failure of other equipment or cause a meltdown.

One of the things I absolutely believe in is removing load from the stock switches.  The ignition switch originally carried all  of the accessory load through a single set of contacts.  The newer cars have stacked switches with many contacts dividing the load but that's not easily done in a classic so I do the next best thing.

On my 66 with EFI I built a custom power distribution box that provides "Always Hot" power through a fused circuit to the cabin, two relay switched 40amp accessory circuits, fused and relay switched head lights and horn, and all of the usual EFI relays and protected power circuits.  This box was built using common parts from suppliers I have found on the web.  Yes it's ugly and I plan to do something nicer some winter.  It does have a cover that makes it a bit prettier.


The neatest thing about the DIY approach is that you can make it fit your needs and run the wires where you desire...not where Lee though they should go.

The main legs of my forward harness run under the fenders and just poke through where needed.  The engine harness comes through the f-wall directly behind the engine.  All of this goes a long way toward keeping the engine compartment less cluttered.








It isn't show quality and never will be.  But, one of my friends said, "it looks like it came from the factory that way."  Good enough for me.



If you should decide to go it alone I'll be happy to provide a list of suppliers as well as some things I've learned and an easy cheap way to label your wires.  And speaking of wires, most guys will go to Auto Zoo or O' Really? to get wire.  It will pass the current but if you plan to make solder joints you need the better stuff.  I use GLX insulated wire from Allied Cable.  It will take the soldering heat without melting the insulation and really isn't that much more expensve.  Really pisses me off when I put on a piece of heat shrink to cover a splice, then the insulation crawls back farther than the tubing will reach.  No problem with good wire.

I'm not an expert and I have learned much from James W, Wsinsley (Now theres a whizz), Bob E and others here.  And I'm sure that if you decide to DIY you can find plenty of help here.  If you are just going with EFI and otherwise stock, you can do your own forward harness that will plug & play pretty easy and it will have more features, better circuit protection, will fit the car better, cure some of the know stock problems, and likely be cheaper than anything you could buy.  And...you'll learn that warin' ain't nuthin' to be skeered of.  If you don't already know that.

Just sayin'.

BB
 

I see your DIY philosophy and raise you by my KNOW YOUR LIMITS approach.

There are hundreds of restoration/repair shops all over the country that make their money off of guys who didn't know their limits.  Go to any restoration shop and ask them how many of their jobs are guys who started off a job and couldn't finish it and ended up having to have it towed in to get a professional to do it.  That's not just limited to cars.  Ask a contractor how many jobs they get based on the home owner thinking they could remodel their bathroom based on a 10 mintue youtube video they saw.

What people fail to take into account is once a job is botched who ever you pay to finish/fix it isn't going to take up where you left off.  99% of the time they want to start from scratch and do a complete diagnostic and replace material for the simple fact that they will have to warranty everything anyway so they aren't going to take chances.  In other words, you'll end up spending more money on material, and even more money on shop hours.  Just go take a glance at the ebay listing of "project" cars that guys gave up on.  You can bet those cars have double the listing price invested.

KNOW YOUR LIMITS.

I'm not saying never do it yourself.  On the contrary, with the wealth of information readily available online for free there is a great advantage in doing it yourself. I've done a lot on my whip myself.  Right now I'm doing replacing all the fixtures and stripping out the old harness.  This will save the install guy shop hours and will give me the piece of mind knowing what's there.  I've also designed a lot of the brackets and custom pieces neccessary for my setup.  Being a mechanical designer, this part is fairly eashy for me and no sense in paying money for what I do for a living.  With that said, a new EFI harness and a new chassis harness from painless will run me $1500 minimum.  So to pay an extra $1000 on top of that to have it installed by a professional who has done lots of mustangs and can guarantee the work is an easy decision for me.  Your wiring is pretty much a set it an forget it part of your ride.  Unlike your motor, it's unlikely you'll be tinkering away with it.  Get it done right the first time.  It's not a matter of confidence or capabilities. It's risk assessment.  For me, on this particular area, it's not worth the risk.  Probably if the old harness wasn't a complete cluster F I would troubleshoot it.  Starting from scrath with a clean body should be pretty simple for a professional.

Too much trouble IMO to build a harness from scratch when premeasured ones are available fairly reasonable. If I did build my own, I'd put in LEDs in the fusebox that would illuminate when a fuse blew.   In fact, I might even modify the Painless harness fuse box to do that.  That would be so cool that I'd be hoping to blow a fuse here or there...

John

James W., your wiring looks great! I did something similar, I used the E-Z Wire 21 circuit and wrapped everything with flex braid (I hate that corrugated plastic loom). I relocated the fuse box behind the glove box and moved the battery to the trunk. I ran the wires under the fenders and they come out by the alternator, I plan on putting in a cold air box which will hide the relays.

Last edited by Triton (3/30/2015 6:28 PM)

John wrote:

Hornman wrote:

John wrote:

Too much trouble IMO to build a harness from scratch when premeasured ones are available fairly reasonable. If I did build my own, I'd put in LEDs in the fusebox that would illuminate when a fuse blew.   In fact, I might even modify the Painless harness fuse box to do that.  That would be so cool that I'd be hoping to blow a fuse here or there...

John

 
John, look at the indicator fuses on Delcity.net. No need to install indicator LED's, just install indicator fuses. They have been around for a good while.

Yeah, but where's the fun in that?     Just to be different, I'll use bi-color LEDs.  When green the fuse is good and has power on it.  When red, it's blown..

John

If you guys are having so many blown fuses that you need LED indication to know where to begin looking...I'd say that what you really need is a decent harness....

BB

John wrote:

Bullet Bob wrote:

If you guys are having so many blown fuses that you need LED indication to know where to begin looking...I'd say that what you really need is a decent harness....

BB

Nope, just bigger fuses-but then I wouldn't get to see the pretty colors..

John

That's true...the smoke would probably hide them.

BB

TremendousWand wrote:

I see your DIY philosophy and raise you by my KNOW YOUR LIMITS approach.

...

Pretty much this. DIY is great if you know you are capable of learning or already knowing what you need to do to do it right the first time. Wiring is not something you want to wing your way through. You screw that up and if you are lucky and your car hasn't burned down the you usually have a mess to fix. If you have a friend nearby who knows electrical systems and they are willing to help you then your chances of success are much better.

In the 80's I used to design marine electrical systems for small and large boats (14'- 46') so when I went to do my Mustang I pretty much went insane on it.

http://i250.photobucket.com/albums/gg248/im41ru2/DSC00126.jpg~original

http://i250.photobucket.com/albums/gg248/im41ru2/Mustang10.jpg~original

I had the advantages of design knowledge, inexpensive bulk marine-grade wire, tools, misc supplies and still it was a royal pain to design, assemble and test a new electrical system for my car. Add to that my penchant for backups and you end up with dual batteries, dual alternators, three starter solenoids, dual ignition systems, no fuses (all resettable circuit breakers), and you have the makings of a design nightmare. Then toss in a headlight delay, timed interior lighting, a five amp stereo system, "puddle" lights, switches to join or segment the battery system and so on and it becomes extremely complex. Testing is everything, going "live" without doing so is playing Russian roulette with your car.

The point is that you need to really assess your capabilities and your goals. If they don't match up then find a better way to get it done right. If that "magic smoke" escapes from your new electical system, you will have a memorable experience that you wish you never had.

Nowhere in this discussion have I seen mention of aesthetics. I have seen DIY wiring jobs that functioned perfectly, but were buttugly. I few years ago I had a buddy that was a professional fabricator ask me to do some wiring on one of his projects because "yours always looks better than mine". My point is that function is not the only criteria. You cannot hide all the wire under the hood. Well, yes you can, but wiring does not have to be ugly. Wiring usually comes late in the project, so everyone wants to be finished and has a tendency to rush through the wiring. Through lots of painful experience I have learned that a wire length difference of 1/4" can mean the difference between a wire run that looks pleasing to the eye versus a wire that looks like "there is something not quite right about that". Take your time, plan ahead, visualize the runs, don't be afraid to redo. Always remember The Seven P's (Proper Prior Planning Prevents Piss Poor Performance).

JamesW wrote:

holy crap! ... little overkill perhaps.

Ya think? So far those redundancies have saved me three dead-on-the-side-of-the-road events. Once when a fan belt broke (aged and cracked), once when the MSD 6T failed (in a coastal rainstorm) and once when an alternator bearing started to fail. All three times I was on the road and far from home. All three times I made it back without having to repair anything.

The additional work was worth it to me. We like to mod our powertrains to no end and but many of us handle the electrical almost as an afterthought when in fact it's a very important aspect of our cars. We have old wiring systems and new needs that we want to make happen that the old wiring systems may have problems with. Also, as mentioned above the aesthetics are important too. I have helped numerous friends with their projects over the years and most of them only care about the electrical side if they can't find some way to kajigger their doodads into place without melting everything down. Getting them to make it right, let alone make it look good, was impossible.

Then they wonder why my car looks (and works) so good...lol!

JamesW wrote:

Bottom line is -  If you're mechanically inclined and you actually want to, then wiring a car is not out of reach.

I think if you're technically inclined then wiring a car is not out of reach. I know more than a few mechanics who freeze like a deer in headlights when it comes to vehicle electrical systems.