painless wiring harness

Baker

Baker

Well-Known Member
Joined
Mar 25, 2010
Location
Suffolk, VA
does anybody have any experience with painless wiring harnesses? I have a '78 CJ 5 and have been fighting with the 37 year old wiring harness since I bought the jeep. I have the majority of the original lights/gauges working but I keep chasing problem after problem and was thinking about biting the bullet and buying a new plug and play painless wiring harness (roughly $500) but would like some feedback if anybody has it before I spend my hard earned money.
 
With a vehicle that old, its worth it to dewire the entire vehicle and put back wire to wire. With less than $100 in wire, fuses, relays and using what gauges/switches you have, you can have a really nice DIY electrical system. Its a great learning experience as well. Get down to the basics of DC electrical.
 
I was also thinking about that. Is there a way to update the fuse box so it uses modern style fuses vs the glass type?
 
I've used a ez wire harness, the person who helped me install had installed both. He said they were nearly identical. The ez wire kit can be found on eBay or from ez wire for much less $$
 
Baker said:
I was also thinking about that. Is there a way to update the fuse box so it uses modern style fuses vs the glass type?
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You can buy a universal fuse panel to house however many spade type you want.
 
The ez wire harness has blade fuses and is about 170.00 much cheaper than painless.
 
I have done EZ wiring harnesses and the bolt in (what you actually asked about) Painless harness (as well as Centech and a few others). The bolt in Painless harness is completely different than an EZ harness. Both are fine options but for ease of install the bolt in Painless is the way to go.

The painless is almost completely pre-terminated which allows for super easy installation. Just be patient and it is a pretty simple (although still time consuming) install.
 
well I think I'm going to try and source a new fuse block (modern) and just try and go ahead and replace everything as stated above. I priced out the harness and best deal I can get seems to be $760 at 4Wheel parts and that's after a military discount. I'm having a hard time justifying spending almost $800 for a wiring harness. I'm thinking I can simplify the original harness and go from there. Jeep is carbureted and has a mechanical fuel pump so it shouldn't be too terrible.
 
I just got off the phone with centech and I am going to go ahead and buy their kit. It sounds to me like a pretty decent setup and the guy even said if I ask for him directly when I order it he will go ahead and attach all the specific connections on the engine harness for my motor/distributor setup. The kit is only $400.00 so I think it should work out well. The fuse block is a stainless steel setup and is completely weatherproof even where it goes through the firewall.
 
EZ-wire harness is the way to go. I used the 21 circuit harness on my 71 CJ. I think it was only around $125-130 on ebay.

Edit: just checked Ebay, these things have gone up a lot. But still way cheaper than Painless!
 
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going for the big bucks! I was going to pipe in a few days ago and say the same thing everyone else was saying about the EZ, but I see you already made up your mind. All I have to say is, doesnt matter what harness it is, you only get one shot when you start snipping and routing. I have done two now, and I am sure there will be more to come... Spend the time and draw a schematic before pulling wire, also, buy lots of cheap zipties to hold the harness in place so you can go back and reroute a wire if you need to, then just snip them all off when finished. And personally, solder and heat shrink your connections, doesn't make sense to put $$$ into a harness that is put together with butt connectors :p good luck man!

Oh, also... one of my biggest mistakes.. when you draw a schematic and change something during the wiring, redraw a whole new schematic with the new change... then KEEP them for future reference. It may seem basic enough, expecially for the CJ, but itll make a big difference when your looking at colors in the harness and cant remember whats what years down the road..
 
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