720 Rewire

[Ready4Rockin]

So, after a pretty interesting drive up into the mountains today, I've decided to put the ol' 720 in the garage for a little while and jazz it up. The positive battery terminal came loose, shutting off the motor and blowing the fuse for my tach. It's un-related to the state of the wiring harness but it got me thinking. The first thing I want to start is a complete rewire, back to front. I've seen a couple people do this and I was wondering if there was a guide out there somewhere (generic or otherwise). It's a pretty simple harness but that doesn't mean it'll be easy. Any advice?

[PEZi]

Only advice I have is to pick up a manual somewhere that has the diagram in it. Not hard to follow with the picture in front of you. Pick the wires you want to keep and which ones you don't... then go to town.

[breadbox]

I'll try to get a pic of the wiring diagrams from my manual.

[breadbox]

[breadbox]

Haynes Manual #72030, get one today. It doesn't tell you every little detail, but it tells you enough. especially good at telling the differences in year and motor setups, and the 2wd from 4wd.

[PEZi]

yep... those are the diagrams i'm going off of for my rewire.

[Ready4Rockin]

Awesome, I'm looking that manual up now. The one I've got is probably as old as the truck itself and seems a lot more partial to the 4x4 models. Did you guys just pull the entire harness out at once and rebuild a new one from the ground up? That was my original idea.

[PEZi]

You can... but you might lose some stuff. I'm 'mining' out the stuff I don't need and replacing what looks bad.

[synack7350]

if you do rewire the thing it's important to always plan for the future... and label everything!

[Ready4Rockin]

Hey, that reminds me. Did you sue new male and female connectors? Where did you find em?

[synack7350]

I fabbed my own 12 pin male and female connectors for the stereo. the connectors were cheap at radio shack. you can find them already pinned though with leads running off them that way you just have to butt splice them. That's the way I'd recommend as pushing all those pins take a long time and alot of patience.

[Ready4Rockin]

Awesome. What about your fuse panel? Any thoughts on wire gauge?

[synack7350]

I think I found the fuse blocks at advanced auto parts. the supply wires are robbed from supply to the oem fuse block and I just moved over the various branch circuits that were being fed by them. Its a good question though as supply / feeders should be provided overcurrent protection and that would dictate your wire size. however the manual only mentions fusible links whatever that crap is and all I see in the vacinity is some but splices lol. so I'm assuming the fusible links were deleted long long ago. thats a can of worms I'm saving for the event that I decide to do a whole rewire, probably when I'm bored enough to do a hid head light conversion. Not very high on my priority list.

Anyway assuming you wanna do it right from the batt estimate total load in amps per branch circuit (feeder) multiply each total amps by .3 add that result to the total amp. (the 30 over rule) that will determine your wire size and and fuse size for each feeder. just from memory so don't quote my figures 6ga. 100amps, 8ga. 50amps 10ga. 30 amps. 12ga. 20amps 14ga. 15amps, 18ga 10 amps. 20 ga 5amps.

now after the fuses in the fuse block the same method applies.

stock in my 83 all the feeders were 10gauge two fed batt two fed ignition and the there were a couple more I think acc and something else oh yeah I think headlights get there own circuit. It's all in the manual

[Flatline1121]

im gonna have to do this seeing as the wiring is the only part of my swapped engine that isn't clean. wires everywhere.