Rewmoving fuse panel and harness

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woodsnake

Well-known member
Joined
Apr 28, 2011
Messages
309
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Location
Colorful Colorado!
My Car
1967,68, and 69 Cougar,
and of course the 71 I am trying to sell!

http://s819.photobucket.com/albums/zz114/woodsnake4462838/
Slowly but surely, progress does get made....My 71, will now crank with the key, however, I have a short some where in the harness, near the fuse panel, as the last time I had 12V  under the dash, I could see smoke trying to get out of the harness.

I have a few extra days off, and want to remove the fuse panel, and wiring forward into the engine bay area..

Any tips on getting this accomplished?

Thanks!



 
Lots of stuff in the way. I removed mine with the dash completely apart and all but the engine itself removed. I am not sure if it can be done without removing all this. Need to be careful not to break the plastic wire harness anchors holding the wire in place. The fuse box is in two parts and is held together by a small screw in the center. The fuse box base with the harness is attached to a bracket that attached the brake pedal support bracket by two screws. Find and disconnect all the plugs along the harness and label them! You have to pry the firewall harness plug loose and pull the harness thru the firewall passing the engine bay portion of the harness thru the firewall hole into the car's cabin. It will not fit thru the hole the other way. As you can see in the next to last picture, I removed the dash side of the harness and fuse box while it was attached to the dash.















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Last edited by a moderator:
Thank you so much for the info and pictures! I had no idea it was THIS involved! Would it be possible, to just separate the halves of the block? When I had battery power hooked up, I noticed the attempt to smoke on the engine bay side of the firewall.. I'm hoping it was only chaffed through the bulkhead, and could be repaired without (NOW!) having to remove the entire thing..

Thanks again, that is some great info!

 
Don't panic and take a deep breath. This is one of those things that is never ending, lol. I doubt the wires are chafed going through the firewall they are in a big rubber plug and no where near the metal.

It is not that bad to take the dash out I have done 4 now I think so getting comfortable with it, lol.

Do remove both front seats and console. If you have the Ford manual it helps. You need to remove the dash pad, drop the steering column down do not have to remove. Take the instrument cluster out. There are a couple bolts from the top one on each end of the dash a brace rod near the left side of glove box and two bolts on each side on the bottom. Put take on the A post where the brackets are to mark location. The controls for the heater have to be unhooked. You unplug the harness in several places. Most stays with the dash but some to heater stays on the firewall.

Great time to replace the heater core especially if you have air cond. Also can add some sound deadening to cowl area in the inside. The factory stuff usually falls apart.

You can order the no glue tape to re wrap the harness as you check it out. You can get the liquid tape to fix bad areas also.

I have quite a few pictures. The wiring in these is a nightmare. I checked every wire and ground and still have issues. I for sure do not like electrical but taking the dash out is not that bad especially if you take care of other things while out. With the seats out you can look for your build sheet also. Then when you see how bad the floors are you can cut them out and when you see how the cowl is leaking you can cut that out. Hey pretty soon you don't have a car. It will snowball for sure unless you set some limits.

David









 
Thank you again, for the pictures, and insight! While the car is growing on me, this task is more than I want to undertake with what I already have going on at the moment. I will look harder at finding the fault under the hood, before I take the whole thing apart.

 
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