Which Wiring Harness To Use...

all three are good ones, and are about the same difficulty to install. as to prewired factory connectors, it depends on what is available from each company, and what you can supply them with from your old harness. your best bet is to contact each company and tell them what you want, and ask them what they need to help you accomplish that goal.

I liked our Ron Francis one on the pickup.

If it is stock and you are not planning on adding more stress to the electrical system, I would just get the reproduction harnesses. These have the correct plugs and you can buy and replace a section at a time . Even if you are doing something common like adding halogen lights, or an electric fan, I would still just use the stock wiring and run relays to those. If you are planning on doing more than that, then I would invest in aftermarket wiring.

I don't have any personal experience with any of the aftermarket harnesses, but my understanding is they are not broken down into sub-sections like the factory harness is. The wires supposedly run from the fuse box all the way to their end connection, in which place they use a plug. And some of them, you even have to re use some of the original plugs.

I think the American Auto wire is a better buy then the painless. The last time I read about them, they came with new headlight and ignition switches for about the same price as the painless kit.

Have not looked at Ron Francis, will have to check that one out.

I had an AA classic update kit, the instructions were not very clear, I sent it back. I`ll be using reproduction wiring on mine just for simplicity's sake.

one nice thing about the aftermarket harnesses is that the wires are marked as to where they go making it easier to wire the car, and service the harness after install.

mustangstofear said:

AWH has the best one hands down, it's all we use. If you not going to add any other options to your car then you might just consider a factory harness. We add power windows, dual electric fans and high end stereo systems, so we we need a complete harness that will handle everything.

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i was looking at your site yesterday, and i rather like your wiring harnesses. i might pick up a couple someday when i get to that point.

I just bought the american autowire harness. it has 4 more circuits than the painelss and only cost 595 from summit. I has pretty much everything you need. they both come in sections. the thing i enjoyed about the AA harness is the fact you can use factory or aftermarket gauges, colums and dont have to worry about rewiring anything crazy to due the 3G alternator because it comes prewired for the 1 wire connection. I also picked up a tuff-stuff 1 wire alt for 82 bucks

I found the original type harnesses easy enough to use and repalce, but I am quite comfortable with using the wiring diagrams to guide me on where to splice in or add power. I haven't added anything (yet) that added that much to the power demands but if I do, I will just add a secondary circuit with a separate blade type fuse box and I may replace the glass box with blades at the same time but so far I don't have a compelling reason to do so. I made many electrical changes that had no load impact, like 2 speed wipers with intermittent and washers but some did. I have added relayed halogen headlights, overhead console and side pod with gages and lights, iPpod charge connection, 3 addtional 12V power outlets, 4 way flasher, electric choke but LED lights all around so the TOTAL load hasn't changed much on any indivual circuit. But the 150 amp one-wire is ready if I do.