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WANTED wanted- underhood wiring or bulkhead connector
- Thread starter richard d woolsey
- Start date
youre in southern IL.... last year I was down there, around Eldorado IL (intersection of IL-1 and US 45) take the 45 branch SW from that intersection a mile or 2, big junkyard on left (east side of road) that guy had an 85 or 2, in the yard then.
Im frrom way north of there (not quite Chicago) but I get down that way a few times a year. also a yard on (I think it was) 127 near Cobden IL that had a couple. not saying they are still there.
Closer to me Acme Auto Parts had around 5-6 80s trucks.....
I put a harness off an 84 on my 85, only differences were at the connector for the wiper motor, I popped the terminals out of 84 connector and popped them into connector from my original 85 harness.... mine was FUBAR beyond hope, was easier to go to yard and get a different harness and plug and play..... LOTSA "past owner interference" on my original harness..... I wound up getting one off of an 84 1-ton that had a 360. Had to do a couple very slight mods since I used that '84 360 harness on a slant 6 truck. I did have to do a few repairs on that JY harness because of age deterioration, but nothing like what it would have taken to fix the original.... in my case a slight added bonus was that the JY harness was already set up for regular Mopar ECU ignition, my original was Lean Burn with computer in firewall......... and being "heavy duty" emissions there were a couple plugs I wasnt gonna use anyways from the original harness. that were already "eliminated" on the junkyard harness...... on account of the HD emissions ones didn't have in the 1st place from factory....
I also deleted every fusible link on there, I found an underhood fuse box from "something else" (happpened to be off a 92 Ranger) that I grafted into that 84 harness, when I put it on my truck with "MAXI fuses", everything that used to be "protected" by a fusible link, now goes thru a fuse..... wasn't that hard. was the most compact fuse box I could find, didn't need a bunch of spots for "regular" fuses....you could adapt one from something else if desired. 12 MAXI fuse slots, I had a few left over for future consideration, plus there were 2 regular fuse spots..... plenty when incorporated with original fuse box.
I grabbed a few of those Ranger fuse boxes, and though all have the same number of slots in the fuse box as every other 90-92 Ranger, but varying numbers of the fuse slots actually have contacts in them for a fuse, depending on how well equipped the donor truck was...... 4 cyl, stick, crank windows, no AC had less fuse slots "used" and able to be used, than a v6 auto, power window with AC for example...... you might be able to take 2 of those and rob fuse blade contacts from one and completely fill all slots to be usable if desired. Unless you are adding a bunch of extras to your truck, that won't be necessary.
I drew up a diagram of the fuse box that tells which F.L. that I put to which slot.... it wasnt hard to figure out, I just went with like gauge size of parent circuit from my Dodge, (fusible links are 3 gauge sizes smaller than circuit protected) to like gauge wire left from fuse box, when I spliced them in. (all with bare uninsulated butt connectors, soldered then heat shrinked with the "good" grade of heat shrink with the included adhesive to seal from elements)
When I cut the wiring from the donor truck I left myself about a foot of lead to splice into..... It helped to have the factory service manual wiring diagram open on the fender as I worked.
I did completely open (untape) the replacement harness, to inspect the wiring for scrapes, "baked off" spots, bad splices, etc.... and did replace a few pieces of wire within before I put it onto my truck.
I had threads on a couple of forums (maybe even here in the Dodge truck section) the slant 6 forum among others about what I did from when I did it.......
Im frrom way north of there (not quite Chicago) but I get down that way a few times a year. also a yard on (I think it was) 127 near Cobden IL that had a couple. not saying they are still there.
Closer to me Acme Auto Parts had around 5-6 80s trucks.....
I put a harness off an 84 on my 85, only differences were at the connector for the wiper motor, I popped the terminals out of 84 connector and popped them into connector from my original 85 harness.... mine was FUBAR beyond hope, was easier to go to yard and get a different harness and plug and play..... LOTSA "past owner interference" on my original harness..... I wound up getting one off of an 84 1-ton that had a 360. Had to do a couple very slight mods since I used that '84 360 harness on a slant 6 truck. I did have to do a few repairs on that JY harness because of age deterioration, but nothing like what it would have taken to fix the original.... in my case a slight added bonus was that the JY harness was already set up for regular Mopar ECU ignition, my original was Lean Burn with computer in firewall......... and being "heavy duty" emissions there were a couple plugs I wasnt gonna use anyways from the original harness. that were already "eliminated" on the junkyard harness...... on account of the HD emissions ones didn't have in the 1st place from factory....
I also deleted every fusible link on there, I found an underhood fuse box from "something else" (happpened to be off a 92 Ranger) that I grafted into that 84 harness, when I put it on my truck with "MAXI fuses", everything that used to be "protected" by a fusible link, now goes thru a fuse..... wasn't that hard. was the most compact fuse box I could find, didn't need a bunch of spots for "regular" fuses....you could adapt one from something else if desired. 12 MAXI fuse slots, I had a few left over for future consideration, plus there were 2 regular fuse spots..... plenty when incorporated with original fuse box.
I grabbed a few of those Ranger fuse boxes, and though all have the same number of slots in the fuse box as every other 90-92 Ranger, but varying numbers of the fuse slots actually have contacts in them for a fuse, depending on how well equipped the donor truck was...... 4 cyl, stick, crank windows, no AC had less fuse slots "used" and able to be used, than a v6 auto, power window with AC for example...... you might be able to take 2 of those and rob fuse blade contacts from one and completely fill all slots to be usable if desired. Unless you are adding a bunch of extras to your truck, that won't be necessary.
I drew up a diagram of the fuse box that tells which F.L. that I put to which slot.... it wasnt hard to figure out, I just went with like gauge size of parent circuit from my Dodge, (fusible links are 3 gauge sizes smaller than circuit protected) to like gauge wire left from fuse box, when I spliced them in. (all with bare uninsulated butt connectors, soldered then heat shrinked with the "good" grade of heat shrink with the included adhesive to seal from elements)
When I cut the wiring from the donor truck I left myself about a foot of lead to splice into..... It helped to have the factory service manual wiring diagram open on the fender as I worked.
I did completely open (untape) the replacement harness, to inspect the wiring for scrapes, "baked off" spots, bad splices, etc.... and did replace a few pieces of wire within before I put it onto my truck.
I had threads on a couple of forums (maybe even here in the Dodge truck section) the slant 6 forum among others about what I did from when I did it.......
I'll have to look, I thought I saved that original harness for possible future need of various connectors, pigtails, etc.... the bulkhead was one of the few connectors that wasn't damaged by the PO.....
Im talking things like wiring to the distributor pigtail just hanging, coil wires spliced with masking (painter's) tape, the main HOT, output 10 ga wire from the big lug on the alternator) changed gauge and wire color 3 times in the length of a slant 6 valve cover.... not even a wire nut and not well taped off even. One, draped within 1/2" of the fuel line that goes over the valve cover, and the least of "well taped"/// a good bump and it could have arced against that fuel line...... and burnt the truck to the ground, in short order. and much much more cobble I wish I would have taken pix of the "before".....
an extension cord from a horribly underrated, past-owner-add-on toggle switch for the blower motor..... a horribly cobbled, aftermarket, add on cruise control under teh dash.....
the rest of what is inside the cab surprisingly escaped.... I dunno how.
Im talking things like wiring to the distributor pigtail just hanging, coil wires spliced with masking (painter's) tape, the main HOT, output 10 ga wire from the big lug on the alternator) changed gauge and wire color 3 times in the length of a slant 6 valve cover.... not even a wire nut and not well taped off even. One, draped within 1/2" of the fuel line that goes over the valve cover, and the least of "well taped"/// a good bump and it could have arced against that fuel line...... and burnt the truck to the ground, in short order. and much much more cobble I wish I would have taken pix of the "before".....
an extension cord from a horribly underrated, past-owner-add-on toggle switch for the blower motor..... a horribly cobbled, aftermarket, add on cruise control under teh dash.....
the rest of what is inside the cab surprisingly escaped.... I dunno how.
richard d woolsey
Active Member
thanks don. let me know what you find. i am in jerseyville, about 25 miles from st louismo, 10 min from alton. i have several 86 up harnesses but they are 50 way bulkheads. i could probably use the wiring from some of the 50 way if i had a 40 way. thanks rick w,
yeah, they actually changed during the 86 model year. some early 86s are the same bulkhead as the 84-85. we found that out when we converted my son's 89 Ramcharger from that horrid TBI setup Mopar used 88-91 back to carb and ECU.
We had gotten a whole wiring harness from an 85 Ramcharger to transplant to the 89.... my kid dint want to gut the interior and swap the inside harness out to match the engine comp. side of the 85 harness..... we thought of doing a pin by pin switchout of the terminals to the original 89 bulkhead connector.... but they changed the width of the terminals between them..... late-86 up was what we needed to match what the 89 had.....
he found one from an 87 318 that had the lean burn, we untaped it all and wired it according to 87 "49 state" 360-4 barrel harness specs and stripped out any excess wiring that would not be needed to keep the engine compartment clean.....
we eliminated the fusible links from that one as well, in the process..... he used an underhood fuse box for some mid/late 90s Ford.... I think his fuse box came from (something like) a 98 Escort ZX2.... most any of the Mopar underhood ones we found, seemed too big and unwieldy for what we were after..... being as how we're dealing with carbureted, basic electronic ignition trucks here...... the underhood fuse box in my 96 Dakota, wouldn't be too terribly big for something like this.....
we did my son's 1st, a couple years before I did mine..... I learned a few things during that job that helped the rewire on my 85 go smoother and easier.
I have to do the same on my 78 Fury 2 door HT when I de-Lean Burn that car, this year..... I'd done quite a few similar cars (Cordobas, Magnum, etc) back in the 80s but I've slept a bit since then.... and back then we just left the original LB plugs hanging and just used the terminals from those plugs as needed and spliced from there. When you don't do that sort of thing "all the time" you tend to forget what you did "last time"....
As a side note, I don't get to that part of So IL that much/ a lil farther south and basically within a few miles of I-57..... my wife has family near Anna, Jonesboro.... Cape Girardeau MO, etc and my neighbor's cabin we go to when we can is on the east side of So IL.... Cave in Rock, Elizabethtown area.... we do sometimes go up to Harrisburg, while we are down that way......
We had gotten a whole wiring harness from an 85 Ramcharger to transplant to the 89.... my kid dint want to gut the interior and swap the inside harness out to match the engine comp. side of the 85 harness..... we thought of doing a pin by pin switchout of the terminals to the original 89 bulkhead connector.... but they changed the width of the terminals between them..... late-86 up was what we needed to match what the 89 had.....
he found one from an 87 318 that had the lean burn, we untaped it all and wired it according to 87 "49 state" 360-4 barrel harness specs and stripped out any excess wiring that would not be needed to keep the engine compartment clean.....
we eliminated the fusible links from that one as well, in the process..... he used an underhood fuse box for some mid/late 90s Ford.... I think his fuse box came from (something like) a 98 Escort ZX2.... most any of the Mopar underhood ones we found, seemed too big and unwieldy for what we were after..... being as how we're dealing with carbureted, basic electronic ignition trucks here...... the underhood fuse box in my 96 Dakota, wouldn't be too terribly big for something like this.....
we did my son's 1st, a couple years before I did mine..... I learned a few things during that job that helped the rewire on my 85 go smoother and easier.
I have to do the same on my 78 Fury 2 door HT when I de-Lean Burn that car, this year..... I'd done quite a few similar cars (Cordobas, Magnum, etc) back in the 80s but I've slept a bit since then.... and back then we just left the original LB plugs hanging and just used the terminals from those plugs as needed and spliced from there. When you don't do that sort of thing "all the time" you tend to forget what you did "last time"....
As a side note, I don't get to that part of So IL that much/ a lil farther south and basically within a few miles of I-57..... my wife has family near Anna, Jonesboro.... Cape Girardeau MO, etc and my neighbor's cabin we go to when we can is on the east side of So IL.... Cave in Rock, Elizabethtown area.... we do sometimes go up to Harrisburg, while we are down that way......