Thread: Painless wireing kits YES or NO

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I am about ready to wire up my truck I've been hearing about these painless wireing kits has any one used one how are they or is it easyer and cheaper to just wire it up youre self. how dificult is it to Just use wire up the small block it cant be that hard can it?

Chevyman, take it form a chick that used to sale them. Painless has an awsome product. the problem is they are entirely over priced!!! They are good but not that good. There a lot of smaller companys tha make an equally good harness for half the price.

thanks thats really good to know beacause after I asked that question I started looking around at some from some small internet based companyes and they are less than haf price and I wontered if there was a difference its just a bunch of wires right how could one be better than the other thanks chris

Chris,
Street rodder is great fo it's advertising. Everyting is in there. Pic one up. they have pretty pictures too.

Chris,
Also you have to ask the companies how well the harness is marked. That helps take a lot of the guess work out of instilation. After a while you will ask yourself if the money saved was worth the head ache. Just ask some questions before deciding on what harness to buy.

Chris, Larissa is correct. Painless is great but overpriced. As for doing it yourself, well that is how I started out and now that is what I do for fun and money, I wire cars. However I live in San Diego. The only thing I can say about painless is that the harness can be pretty generic. I wired a Scout for a friend and a Land cruiser for a buddy and it was the same harnesss for both vehicles! Worked great, I had to ass wire to some leads because of my routing chioces(mostly hidden) but other than that I worked great. A welder I eork with is wiring his Scout with a painless kit and has had a few questions but has got it done on his own. If you go with another manufacturer make sure they supply some sort of labeling on the wires. I use color codes but hten again I have 14 different colors/stripe combos and then there is gauge. If you do it yourself it will cost you more in wire and terminals than the kit, but you will have left over parts. You will also have to deal with the engineering problems like gauge verus load verus distance. Good luck and keep posting.

I really like the way painless builds their kits (but definatly agree the price is ridiculous). Something to watch out for is if the wires are not already installed solidly to the fuse block (painless is molded in there). A lot of other companies will have you attaching the raw wires to the fuse block via easily loosening connectors. And yes definatly how far apart is every label on the wire (are we talking once or every 5-12"s). There is a small company called Gearhead that makes good ones for about $170 (buy it now) on ebay. Havent used it but looks comparable. I have baught a few projects just too keep little things sellers throw in like wiring harnesses, whitewalls etc and sell the rest of the project off. Have never had a problem with the painless harnesses, and they took only as long as the list of acceseries, to install in the car. One thing to get is a list of the voltage drops you might need for stock gauges or resister (spaghetti) wires that might exist fer yer project. I'm rambling, 2c anyway, cheers

HP books also has a great book on wiring. Check it out. It's a good read

thanks guys and girls for all info this is great being able to ask so many people a question all at once. I found a good one on ezwireing.com Ive heard a few people say there pretty good it runs obout $160 for the one I want

True Tech, But with a little shopping and asking some questions he can get a good product without getting robbed. For the price of a painless kit it should install itself!

If you are looking for cheap then this wouldn't be the answer for you but:

http://www.wiringharness.com <- Depending on what year & mfg truck you are working on, These guys reproduce the complete harness's, connectors and all.

its expensive, but I know people who have bought from them and it is A1 quality. Unlike the universal kits, these ones are ready to go with the correct connectors and everything. They will also do custom mods to it if you ask.

Again, if you are looking for cheap, don't even bother clicking the link- but if you don't want to futz around with making a universal kit work in a specific application, these guys are hard to beat.

<EDIT> I gotta admit though- I also know guys who have added power everything to their musclecars... and the painless kits with the modern blade fuses and extra circuts for everything definitely make that process nice also...

ya but the universal kit is best for me becase my tuck is completly diferent than it was stock like what companny is going to make a harness for a 51 chevy pickup on a Z28 frame with a 350 small block a delta 88 stering colum Im gessing not to many

You might be surprised. Try calling around, it is probably out there, but not cheap.

ya I gess but I dont want to pay alot just so It fits perfect i dont mind paying alot less for somthing that lots of people say works well that my be a bit harder to do and figure out Im a pretty compitint peson the wireing dosen't scare me that much
Im going to go with the 21cercit kit form ezwireing.com Its agood deal for $160 and Ive read a bunch of reveiws that people say it was easy to install it in there hotrods

Let me know how it turns out Chevyman! I will need to wire my sedan eventually.