Electrical Can anyone ID who made this wiring harness by looking at the firewall plug?

[AndyCJ7]

The other day I noticed that some of the wiring on my jeep has detailed labeling on it describing what it connects to. I've never seen this on a factory harness before. When looking up a diagram for the firewall wiring connector, I noticed that my plug looks different and some of the wire locations and colors don't match up. Worse, many of the plugs on this harness have a ton of green corrosion in them. I think that someone put a harness in this once before.

My question is, can anyone tell me who might have made this harness? I can't find any markings at all on it.

 

[Scout1067]

My Painless harness has labels and numbers on the wires.

Sent from my SM-A528B using Tapatalk

 

[AndyCJ7]

I found some markings on the wires and I confirmed that it's a Painless wiring harness. So this jeep has been completely re-wired at some point in the past. I've read through the Painless wiring harness installation guide and the wiring colors seem to be different. I haven't determined if the terminals are in the same locations or not yet.

I've studied various wiring diagrams and I've also ordered the CRT HEI distributor that requires just a single 12V power wire and a tach output. This should clean up the engine bay wiring harness quite a bit.

The engine bay wiring harness was a complete mess. Half of it was electrical tape and zip ties. Part of the wire loom was original from 1985 and crumbled in my hands. I decided to remove all that and the wiring loom and expose everything. I found that someone had put a cheap auto parts store butt/crimp connector in the alternator charge wire. It was wrapped in 2' of electrical tape.

<rant> Literally everything I touch on this jeep has been hacked together/apart, done poorly, done on the absolute cheap, neglected, and frequently all of the above. I haven't even told half the stories about the things I've fixed on it so far. I feel like I need to take everything on it apart - literally everything that affects acceleration, stoppage, movement, electrical, fuel, or otherwise, is suspect and needs to be evaluated from scratch. Like when I dropped the fuel tank to find a tank full of varnish and debris that needed a multiple 24-baths in undiluted muriatic acid to render usable, the fuel tank sender wire that was hanging free under the chassis, which was connected to an absolutely roached sending unit, and none of which mattered anyway because the float was bobbing freely around the inside of the tank. This jeep is just a cluster**** of poorly done repairs. Aside from completely rebuilding the rear brakes (it's always good when hardware falls onto the ground as you remove the brake drum) I haven't looked closely at the driveline yet. The 258 engine and T5 transmission seem to be in decent shape at least. </rant>

Thanks for reading!

 

[Kens1979cj5]

I feel your pain. When I bought mine in 2021 I ended up just ripping all the wiring out and starting over. Had more butt connectors than wire.

 

[TSB8C]

When I got my current '84 CJ7, the PO stated the e-brake cable needed adjusting. I later found that the cable wasn't even connected inside the brake drum as parts were missing and that brake wasn't working at all. I also found hacked wiring under the dash where the PO had installed some after-market gauges hanging under the dash to replace non-functional stock ones still in place. The engine bay wiring wasn't too bad, just lots of unused connectors and such on the original I6 engine. When I installed the SBC and fuel injection, I simply removed every harness (under dash, engine bay, rear) and laid them out on the dining room table. Unwrapped them completely and started to work. I needed to splice in ground wires, added some circuits for my dual battery setup, Dakota Digital gauges, alarm, keyless and remote start, and other additions I was making (map lights in mirror, new stereo speaker locations, etc). Once all re-done, soldered, fixed stock splices that always seem to go bad over time, and re-wrapped, all back in and working great. Part of the fun of an old CJ is discovering all the fun times a PO left for you to uncover.

 

[AndyCJ7]

I'll bet you've never seen this trick before:

This is the stock oil pressure gauge. The needle is painted on!

 

[Belizean]

A feel good gage.

 

[CJ]

Well you'll always have good oil pressure!

 

[gert]

Lmao, mine still had all the factory junk including the feedback computer in it, i ripped that rats nest out and went with a painless kit, way nicer, found out the hard way that the alternator exciter wire is powered from the fuse panel tho


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

[TSB8C]

I'll bet you've never seen this trick before:

This is the stock oil pressure gauge. The needle is painted on!
View attachment 78171

Hilarious! Now just paint the speedo and you'll never be speeding either, right? Maybe that trick could also work on the fuel gauge so you never run out of gas.

 

[73CJ]

Looks like a 1975 CJ5 harness plug going through the firewall.