After it started to clear up, to a point where I knew we had a break from the monsoon of the past few days, I hit the local junkyard looking for a small underhood fuse box that takes the big plug in maxi fuses, as I am rehabbing a wiring harness for my new to me truck. The original one is a mess, alot of past owner interference going on. Cobble city. I have never seen a wiring harness on a single truck, so cobbled. I have seen a lot of add ons on some vehicles over the years, that are easy to rip out/undo, and this one had a couple of those too. Like aftermarket cruise and an aux switch wire nutted to an extension cord (!) Run right to the blower motor.
But in the length of the valve cover, (inline 6) the hot wire off of the alternator changes colors 3 times, just twisted and taped together. One of which is an inch from the fuel line that feeds the carburetor. The next one is like 3 inches from that. The wires to the coil, distributor, and field side of the alternator too. That part of the harness actually unplugs from the main harness, would have been much easier to get another engine harness from a yard and "plug and play" into the main harness.
What idiots have had their mitts on this truck in the past. Electrical is NO place for such a cobble job.no wonder why the truck had no spark when I first tried to start it.
Along the driver side fenderwell, the fusible links are just as bad. I'm surprised that this thing didn't burn to the ground.
Plus I am removing the primitive computer and reverting to plain old factory electronic ignition along the way.
I got a better underhood harness in my last trip to the junkyard that I have untaped and crimped/soldered/heat shrunk any spots that the insulation has split and showed bare.
We did the same thing to my son's ramcharger last year.
I hunted and looked at many makes and models, car and truck, before I decided on a suitable fuse box. Not too huge, has the style of fuses I wanted with just enough fuse spots for each fusible link, plus a few extra for future consideration.
When we did the ramcharger we wound up with a fuse box from a 98 ZX2, I spent a little more time and walked the whole yard, except for the imports and the sections of the Fords that were under water from the last two days of solid rain.
I found one that I liked the best off of a 90-92 ranger. "Last of the square body rangers"
Only one row of fuses within, with about a dozen maxi fuse spots and 2 regular standard size blade style fuses. Now to put the new revamped harness on the truck so I can see how much wire that I will have to add in to make the connection.
Now to remember to grab a couple of ballast resistors for the glove box haha
