Aftermarket wiring harness

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Joined
Nov 15, 2016
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Location
Australia
My Car
1972 Mustang Coupe 302 Auto RHD
Pulled my wiring harness out of storage the other day and what a mess!

Not looking forward to having many wiring issues and the fact that the PO had extended the harness to suit RHD it hasn't been done well.

First contact was obviously Midlife who has been more than helpful however due to my harness being modified and RHD he suggested I might be better off going with an aftermarket harness.

My initial research comes up with 2 companies, one which should be renamed painful wiring which only sells a universal harness meaning I would have to splice nearly every wire to OEM connectors. The other company is American Autowire and although they have some better priced universal kits they also have a specific 1971-1973 Mustang update harness kit here - https://www.americanautowire.com/shop/classic-update-series/1971-1973-ford-mustang-classic-update-kit

Fairly expensive  at $999 so it would need to pretty good for that price

Anyway interested if anyone has experience or fitted an aftermarket harness to their Mustang especially the one mentioned above

 
Hi Oz, I used the Ron Francis access 24-7 ford kit. about 550.00 u.s, I'm happy with the quality and features. The movable easy access fuse box is a nice plus. however it was ALOT of work and time. My brother in law who is an elecriclal engineer was a huge help. Not many things on my car are of original type so this harness worked well for me. That said, If I were looking to do more of a factory replacement harness. The extra money for the specific harness may be well worth it.

 
Pulled my wiring harness out of storage the other day and what a mess!

Not looking forward to having many wiring issues and the fact that the PO had extended the harness to suit RHD it hasn't been done well.

First contact was obviously Midlife who has been more than helpful however due to my harness being modified and RHD he suggested I might be better off going with an aftermarket harness.

My initial research comes up with 2 companies, one which should be renamed painful wiring which only sells a universal harness meaning I would have to splice nearly every wire to OEM connectors. The other company is American Autowire and although they have some better priced universal kits they also have a specific 1971-1973 Mustang update harness kit here - https://www.americanautowire.com/shop/classic-update-series/1971-1973-ford-mustang-classic-update-kit

Fairly expensive  at $999 so it would need to pretty good for that price

Anyway interested if anyone has experience or fitted an aftermarket harness to their Mustang especially the one mentioned above
Ouch!  I thought the aftermarket kits run about $4-$500.  With shipping back and forth, my work would be in that price range.

 
Thats a pretty nice complete wiring harness. I never knew they actually made one for our years. Lots of great features, but damn thats expensive.

 
Thanks Keiths71 and I did come across Ron's website today so will check it out

Jowens - you are correct about the price but at least you guys don't pay the shipping I do, does look like a good set up though and would be far better than wrestling with a universal type kit

Midlife, yes there are some harness kits in $480-600 range but would require a lot of work to get them to fit as Keith mentions

To be honest I'm not fussed if I use my original harness refurbished or aftermarket as long as either will work well and not give me too many hassles down the track

I will wait to see what feedback I get from AAW but if you reckon you can make mine good again and with shipping it comes well under $1k then I would still consider it

I do like the AAW set up so far with the later fusebox and upgrades for guages, alternator etc though but will need to have a decent win in the lotto to pay for it!

 
One other thing to consider with a universal kit is you will need a good soldering iron, solder, shrink wrap, a lot of tape, protective sleeves, clips, grommets etc. That stuff does add up. One of those harbor freight third hand things was handy. Also it's a good idea to add a fuse or circuit breaker which you have to buy separately

 
If price-wise it came down to an aftermarket or a refurbished Midlife harness, I would definitely go with Randy. It will be right, as close to OEM as possible & he will support it.

An added plus is that the factory wiring diagrams will still be usable (read left to right) and the color codes will be correct.

As a matter of fact, I think that once you factor in the time it will take to 'fit' an aftermarket harness Randy's is the better deal anyway.

 
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If price-wise it came down to an aftermarket or a refurbished Midlife harness, I would definitely go with Randy. It will be right, as close to OEM as possible & he will support it.

An added plus is that the factory wiring diagrams will still be usable (read left to right) and the color codes will be correct.

As a matter of fact, I think that once you factor in the time it will take to 'fit' an aftermarket harness Randy's is the better deal anyway.
It won't be OEM due to the car's conversion to RHD.  The prior owner added a section to the headlight harness to mate with the fuse box, now located on the RHS, a section added to keep the tail-light harness on the LHS, etc.  The sections that were added were cobbled together poorly.  The car has never run with the modified wiring, so I do not have confidence that the lengths added for these sections is correct or not; without access to the car, I can only use what the prior owner judged to be correct.

As far as electrically wiring things, I can do that, but the RHD conversion adds an awful lot of complications.  Take one example: the connector for the parking brake is located just inside the firewall grommet for the headlight harness.  I presume that needs to be re-located to the RHS.  Is that located on the left or right side of the driver himself (probably the left), but exactly where?  Similarly for the dimmer switch...

This would not be a straightforward refurbishment.  I need to avoid any returns due to the high shipping costs to Ozz-land.

 
Midlife is correct that as the harness I have has not been tested or done well it would be difficult to get it work well and the lengths right so short of flying Midlife over to sunny Western Australia I think he is correct in saying I would be better off with an aftermarket harness plus I will be able to add extra circuits easily.

I have heard back from AAW on the classic upgrade harness and they are not sure on using it for RHD yet although I thought since they mount the fuse box on the RH side behind the glove box for LHD then most of the harnesses should actually be longer but waiting on more info.

They actually suggested I use this universal style kit - https://www.americanautowire.com/shop/highway-22-panel-wiring-kit

Less than half the price so may just go that way and spend a few frustrating days wiring it up

I have also asked for the benefit of any members considering the Classic Upgrade what is the advantage of this kit compared to a Universal style kit

At the price they sell for it would want to be good and easy to fit but I don't think it will be putting Midlife out of a job anytime soon

 
No one is going to put me out of business; I'm doing this primarily to get away from the wifey.

 
Okay have decided in my situation I would be best to install the Highway 22 harness

Here's what AAW said about their Claasic harness -The things you'd be battling here are what give the vehicle-specific kits a leg up on any (be it ours or any other) universal kits. The harness is designed and built for a specific vehicle and includes original-replacement connectors, terminals and lamp sockets. This makes it much simpler to retain things like your original switches and bulbs.

From what AAW said their Classic Upgrade harness is mostly plug and play with original style connectors so even if the harness would fit mine I would have a hell of a lot of excess wire to hide.

With either kit you would still need to wire or splice in the column connectors from what I gather.

So for anyone interested in a new upgraded almost plug and play harness it could be worth considering

Midlife is certainly the best and most economical option but certain situations require a new harness or in my case start from scratch

Oh and Midlife at least you're getting paid to avoid the wifey, I'm slowly going broke in my avoidance scheme!

 
Better to be broke and happy than to have too much money and nothing to spend it on...

Glad you found a reasonable solution to your problems. Now take a large adult beverage or two; you'll feel better.

 
I used the universal painless harness on my 1973 Mach 1 after a harness meltdown and underhood fire a couple if years ago. It was allot of work soldering and heat sleeving the connectors off of the old wire harness from the old to the new, but it was well worth it. It allowed me to wire up my factory tach, guages, ac, and left provisions for the electric choke on my Holley. My car is converted to Duraspark, and lays out how to wire that as well. If you have a good understanding of 12v wiring, it is fairly straightforward. I would not recommend it for a novice, as I had to match up the factory wiring diagrams and wire colors to the painless wiring circuits.

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 
I thought I would chime in here, i have used the EZ wiring harness, they are very helpful with support on their product and all in all it has not been too much of a pain.

Since I have done this I can share my experiences and can tell you that you are loking at solvdering about 10 - 20 joints at max , most of these are on the dash section. The rest are really very easy and if you not using the power windows and cruise control you can have loads of extra "circuits"

The kits are not too expensive either.

At $185 for a complete kit I think its well worth it.

http://www.ezwiring.com/store/viewitem.php?productid=238

 
ok probably waaaaaaaay to late here, but hindsight is 20/20 and mine is like 20/10. Wouldn't you be better off to ship the harness to midlife, knowing he knows every circuit, and he knows its RHD. Let him check and fit it (will cost some but you knows its right) and send a whole RHD unit back? Mid that's within what you can do right? I assume you have access to a basic structure you would fit to and give a couple inches on the fuse box, maybe supply a tie wrap :) Basically retro fit it generic but knowing what the car has.

 
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holy shit man am I the WIFEY??????????? I'm really concerned here as I'm a 40 year old man..................................

 
ok probably waaaaaaaay to late here, but hindsight is 20/20 and mine is like 20/10. Wouldn't you be better off to ship the harness to midlife, knowing he knows every circuit, and he knows its RHD. Let him check and fit it (will cost some but you knows its right) and send a whole RHD unit back? Mid that's within what you can do right? I assume you have access to a basic structure you would fit to and give a couple inches on the fuse box, maybe supply a tie wrap  :) Basically retro fit it generic but knowing what the car has.
It all depends upon how well the RHD conversion was done.  I've heard where the firewall hole for the headlight harness was left on the left side, which creates a massive problem for splicing in a long, large section of harness to reach that hole.  Electrically, it is no problem for me, but knowing the length of wiring to add creates a huge problem.  If just a couple of inches too short, the harness needs to be sent back to me for lengthening.  With shipping costing $60 each way, that gets real expensive quickly.

 
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