Thread: Painless!!

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Ok, I have been tinkering quite a bit with the elky the last few days trying to make a parts list. That way when i get all my money saved up for it i already know what i need. Well, one major problem is that my wiring is a disaster! Grounds that go no where, grounds that aren't ground, wires ran to nothing but are still attached to a power source...you get the drift.

I've been looking at the Painless Wiring Systems at www.painlesswiring.com

If u'd like to look go to:
Web Catalog >> Muscle Car Harnesses >>
scroll down to Part #20102.

Has anyone had any experience with these?

I can't say I have but have you thought about just buying a new stock replacement harness? I have done that and I found it very easy just to replace the old harness. I actually replaced all of my harnesses with stock ones since they just wire right up to everything that's there, assuming your staying pretty stock on the electrical end of things with the elky. Just a thought.

The shop i work at has has several opportunities to experience the aggrevation involved in wiring a car with a painless kit. I would strongly recommend against it. We have wired a lot of cars, and will use nothing but Ron Francis wiring kits. They typically cost a little more than the painless kits, but the cost will more than be recovered by your time installing the kit. Just my two cents.

Eric

I didn't catch which of your cars needed wiring help, but it really makes little difference, get a factory wiring diagram,and investigate all those added circuits that now go nowhere and remove them. Then you can see which of the original circuits need repair. The factory diagram tells you everything, wire gauge,color code,terminal points. Even if you want to yank it all out and start over, it makes life simpler. Hank

i have been using painless since they first came out years ago. i've never had a problem with installing or customer assistance. if you cant install a painless you need to take it to a builder and let them install it.

I myself would follow halftanked's recommendation. Although I'm comfortable with wiring it all, I don't know if you are. Get a stock wiring diagram on ebay or something and it should be pretty simple. Any local audio shop or electrical shop should have the 16 and 18awg wire needed for pretty cheap. They should have all the connections as well.

I see, I guess if u look at the money side of it, you can probably get the job done a lot cheaper by just wiring the whole car yourself without a painless kit. I find it hard to see spending 450 dollars on wiring and connectors like you would on a painless kit.

Originally posted by Hopper111
I see, I guess if u look at the money side of it, you can probably get the job done a lot cheaper by just wiring the whole car yourself without a painless kit. I find it hard to see spending 450 dollars on wiring and connectors like you would on a painless kit.

HOLY CRAP! Is that how much they run? I could never spend that much on wiring when I know I coudl do it myself. It may a tedious, timestaking and sometimes aggravating job but man, it can save you a lot of moolah. I prefer stranded, ofc wire because it is real flexible and a lot easier to crimp. 18awg shoudl be fine for most of the wiring, and 2awg for pwr wire (alternator, starter, etc) will provide plenty of current carrying capability and in some cases better electrical performance. All the wiring can be had for probably less than $50. Good luck.

By the time you spend all the money on the quality different colored wires, various connectors, shrink sleeve, then buy the fuse block and the relays and figure your time, the aftermarket harness isn't that bad of a deal. The last Painless 12 circuit universal harness I bought was about $250.00, by specific application they are higher. Another point, the painless wires are labeled all along the full length of the wire as to which component they go to.

Originally posted by Dave Severson
By the time you spend all the money on the quality different colored wires, various connectors, shrink sleeve, then buy the fuse block and the relays and figure your time, the aftermarket harness isn't that bad of a deal. The last Painless 12 circuit universal harness I bought was about $250.00, by specific application they are higher. Another point, the painless wires are labeled all along the full length of the wire as to which component they go to.

I used the 18 circuit Painless wiring universal street rod kit and it cost about $280 when I got it a while back. I would say it was by far the best money I spent on an application for my pickup. VERY, VERY easy to follow instructions and their tech support is great! I plan on using their products in the future.

EZ Wiring is just as good IMO. Only difference people said they saw with both is EZ ships their kit in some plain crappy little box... Saw it in a mag too which was advertising for them but don't think they are just doing it to get you to buy the product, I hear it's true. That is what I plan to go with on my 48 and 66. I did the wiring on my headlights the other week and used heavier gauge wiring, new connectors, etc because on it the power goes to the headlight switch to the bright switch and THEN to the headlights, it losing power after going through the switches and so I put in relays and now the lights are MUCH brighter, I got rid of that old brittle wire. Only wires on the thing is the lights, gauges and that's probably it. So basically that ONE change was enough to do half of the wiring I had already haha.

Originally posted by DennyW
You better re think your wire sizes. 18 is like telephone wire. Most automotive wire is at least 16ga. Alt bat wire should be at least a 12 ga.

Keep in mind also the different outter coating. What it is made of material wise. Some of that expense does seem a little high, but you are not just dealing with a bulk roll of wire. Neoprene coating, and high temp coatings all take a little more to process.

I think there is a couple more ways to do it, and manufacturers to deal with price wise.

18awg is good for a trustworthy 5A, and I would imagine that would be fine for a lot of the wiring(72W worth of pwr), such as interior lighting (assuming they are on thier own circuits). 16awg would be better, but if you do not need it, then no reason for paying extra if you're on a budget. 12awg for PWR and GRND is a little small, seeing as how it is only rated at 20A. 4awg is standard, but I always try to use 2 or 00awg.

The coating for most quality speaker wire should be fine. I ran my 4awg PWR through the engine compartment of a daily driver Tahoe in Sicily for 3 years and never had a problem

Although I am just going by my own experiences. What works fine for me may not work fine for others, right..

All items are fused at max amperage draw, such as the items in your box. They usually won't draw anywhere near that, and if they did for longer than a few milliseconds, the fuse would open.

18awg is too small for some applications, you're right about that, but not all of them. I should have stated my first post better. Any person attempting to wire thier car should use the suggested sizes for their application and make sure proper fusing is intertwined.

And incase you want to know the results, a large portion of wires coming from the harness in the Falcon are around 18awg

And also, I can assure you that if a wiring job was to be completed by me, the smoke would not pour out. The smoke is the majic that makes electricity work, and once it pours out, it don't work no mo, and we cannot be having that

We've used american autowire on the last couple rods we've wired. They offer different fusebox sizes and are less expensive than painless. I've had no problems with their kits and even have on on my belair. Look into them before you go with painless.