Wiring Harness

[JStinson]

Gentlemen,

I haven't been here in a while, and am thrilled to be back (as a subscriber, no less). I'm about to start gathering parts for an honest to goodness frame off restoration on the M37. For those that remember, I trolled these forums when I was doing my restoration on it, but at the time I was in college and did not have the means by which to do a real frame off restoration.

Progression pictures here:

www.myspace.com/1953m37

In any event...as mentioned before, I'm about to start the parts search. I've been looking at wiring harnesses (seems like a reasonable place to start). VPW has complete kits for $900, which seems absurd. Midwest Military has them for $550, which still seems excessive. Is there another company that has these? Those prices seem ridiculous for a bunch of wires.

Good to be back!

[Doc Dave]

All of the suppliers are going to charge you a signficant amount, but there is a LOT of labor involved in making one up with the original type wiring and terminal ends.

I think VPW's quote seems a bit on the high side, but they might be sourcing it from someone else who makes it, and thus have to add a sum for their expense to stock as a business.

A person who posts on here, Tom P, made his own for a civilian PW and he told me it was quite time comsuming.

I got my harness from Vintage Wiring of Maine. I can't say enough about the personal service and responsiveness of the owner, Joe. I called him three times during the install and he was very helpful, and even sent me a few extra parts I wanted at a nominal sum.

Check out his site, and click on the "tour of the shop". It shows the process.
http://www.vintagewiringofmaine.com/

If you want to do your own that is great, but I am glad I went with Maine.

Dave

[JStinson]

Thanks Doc! That site is helpful, I wasn't aware how much effort went into making them.

So, the moral of this story is "if you do a real restoration, be prepared to saw off your right arm to fund it"? Which is fine, since i usually drive with my right :D

[Doc Dave]

If you don't care about the "original" appearing wire, and use modern wire, you could make your own for considerable savings if you are patient.
I have heard that folks lay the original harness out on the floor of their garage and then use it as a pattern for the new wire, making sure they use the correct gauge for the various circuits.

[Charles Talbert]

Restorations done right cost big bucks these days. You can in theory save some if you furnish all labor and count your time as nothing; but be prepared to spend hundreds of hours on a project done right. You can approach it in a number of ways, the best being start at the front and work to the rear COMPLETELY rebuilding every component back to new specs as you go, or you can approach it as some do saying well I believe that will be ok only to find out in a short time that your short cut in effort will come back to bite with a vengeance, causing redo-redo-redo, bringing about a very frustrating and more costly experience rather than the pleasure of a job well done.

Wiring is extremely important, we have built many harness; components to build them are high $$$. It is relatively simple to do, but the end terminations used on a military harness are off the charts in cost. Vintage Wiring of Maine has the best product for the dollar they charge, most of the others source from them. Bear in mind also, the cheaper price quotes do not include turn signals or any extra circuit stuff, it's only a bare bones harness, not suitable to wire a truck that will be driven on today's highways. I will add that what ever you do, don't fall for an NOS harness. The insulation will be falling off by the time you get it installed. Use a harness built only from fresh new components. Your truck will burn to the ground because of bad wiring, it happens, don't take the risk.

WPM gets in the $750 range for a complete harness for a truck that will be driven on today's roads, you can't build your own correct harness that cheap and be anywhere near the quality of theirs. The truck will pass all safety inspections (if you do your job of installing all the equipment you need correctly) and will be reliable as far as electricals go. It's the world we all live in today.

I have people call for price quotes on this or that, sometimes I get the response "I didn't pay that much for the truck", well just because you bought a deal 25 years ago certainly doesn't mean you can rebuild it today for less than you paid for it 25 years later. I don't know of anything that hasn't increased in cost over the years, however some folks just can't grasp the facts.

Good luck with the restoration, take your time, do it right the first time, and be proud of a finished truck that will give good service for years to come. One more tip; it is way better to do wiring after all mechanical rebuilding and body work is done. If you install new wiring now, then have to remove and reinstall the harness several times because of doing other work later, that isn't a smart approach. Pulling everything down to the frame, blasting, doing the necessary repairs, priming, painting, mechanical rebuilding, etc; then install new wiring as you go through the rebuild process is the better way to handle it. With this in mind, don't purchase the harness now, but wait until a few weeks before time to install it to purchase; then it will be fresh right at the time of installation. If you purchase now and let it lay around for a year or 2 while other stuff is getting done, it will deteriorate somewhat just laying on the shelf. Military spec wire used to build these harness is notorious for that.

[Warren Watt]

New wiring for mine.........

I can quote Doc Dave to the letter regarding my experience. Vintage Wiring of Maine was my choice. I paid $800 for my set, got advice personally from the owner and an extra small section at no charge. I am very satisfied.
Now, regarding restoration.....read Charles's post...then, read Charles's post...let it sink in.....really consider what you are up against.......this is no time to cut corners. The end result WILL reflect your investment. Good luck with the project and keep coming back here...post some images..

[Doc Dave]

Warren,
Are you going to the West VA rally next month? I am planning to go...hope to see you there.

[Warren Watt]

W VA Rally

Hi Dave - sorry so late in answering. Unfortunately, life and all has me scheduled up too full and I will miss the fun again. I'd still like to meet up for lunch at some point in time. Thanks!

[Gordon Maney]

Whatever happened to Jeff Smith of MVP? He used to do military harnesses.

[gusbratz]

here is a NOS front parts one on ebay. if you could get it cheap maybe you could use it as a template or use the connectors off of it.
http://cgi.ebay.com/ebaymotors/NOS-D...ehicleQ5fParts

[JStinson]

here is a NOS front parts one on ebay. if you could get it cheap maybe you could use it as a template or use the connectors off of it.
http://cgi.ebay.com/ebaymotors/NOS-D...ehicleQ5fParts

Thanks for the tip. However, I think I'm going to go with the safe bet and get the recommended one from VW of Maine. I really don't want to play electrician and make my truck look like the Delorean right before blast off on Back to the Future.

[gusbratz]

It will be worth it, I had a cj-5 that i took down to the frame. I made the wireing harness myself out of off the shelf components. I was never happy with it. it gave me fits. the cheap little vinal connetors from autozone would uncrimp and lights would now work ect. ect. ect. it was just never right and i relly put some time into that sucker. tried to do the best I could and it was just not good enough.

[Longhunter7]

Vintage Wiring of Maine!

I just finished a frame off on my 63' M37-B1, and went with Vintage Wiring of Maine for my complete harness.

I was amazed at the quality and attention to detail in the harness. I also added turn signals and the included installation instructions were excellent.

Try it, you'll like it!

[Mike L.]

I try to do as much myself as possible since this is a hobby for me and I get to learn and do something new in a lot of areas. I was able to rebuild my own harness by using the old harness, my driveway, and 12' lengths of new-ish (1987 date on the insulation) wire. They were about 12' lengths as I recall, cut on one end, male terminal at other end. I think I got the wire from one of the surplus outlets like Spruce Mountain or Saturn Surplus (been a few years now) for about $25.

For runs longer than 12' I soldiered the connections into butt splices and used standard heat shrink tubing to seal the connection; about half of the wires as I recall. I did add an inch to each run just to be sure and the extra wires for turn signals.

I reused the loom reinforcement sections, the cloth harness ID label (though pretty faded), the metal Douglas shells, and the wire tags (be very gentle prying them off and re-attaching them), wrapped the whole thing in vinyl electrical tape, and verified I had continuity (0 ohms on all!).

I had the frame open then so I was able to lay it on the frame and check the work. Looks, feels, and works identical to the original. Took a weekend and will last many years. We all have to budget our time and funds on these trucks during restorations and it was one area I was comfortable with. I'm guessing the total cost was less than $50.