wiring
 

took the dash off, i've got wires that are sliced, spliced, and held together with duct tape. do i go with a new harness or do i fix what i've got? (if fixing's the answer, will chilton's and haynes tell me what i need to know?)

anyone do a painless system?

elmono

Let me know what year your truck is and I'll try to scan some good images for you.......

I have not, but I plan on buying their 18 circuit 73-87 kit in the very near future. I believe Chris (Capt Kaos) has one already.

From what I have heard they are the best! :)

-Jeff

Re: wiring
 

I have fixed some 26 year old chassis wiring harness and a lot of interior harness with quality heat shrink tubing and a soldering gun. You can make it as good and strong as new. And it looks great. Dont waste your money on heat shrink tubing from radio shack or sears or whatever. I get mine in like 48" peices from the Earls performance dealer in my area.. Damn if I cant remember the brand though. But its real good stuff, comes in like 1/16", 3/32", 1/8" etc etc.. and it shrinks like heck and comes in a bunch of different colors etc. Its really good stuff. Thats what I personally would do. Replacing an entire harness is gonna be a huge job, and unless youre doing a 100% restoration or whatever, I dont see the point. Replace any part of the harness that is REAL bad or coroded or whatever, but the factory stuff cant be beat. For a fraction of the cost and time of replacing the entire harness with the painless kit, you could have yours in perfect shape. You should see how sweet the chassis wiring is on my 77 K25. I used all original stuff except for very few spots where I had to splice. It came out sweet.

Lacquer thinner on a rag will clean the wires up real well and have them looking like new again also. (The coating, not the actual conductor)

theres my $0.02

mike

I would definitely just replace the wiring if it's hacked up that bad! You'll regret it if you don't. Painless is a very good product and they stand by it. I have a coworker that used to work for them and is still in contact with people there. If you ever have problems with them, let me know I can see if she can take care of it. :)

It's a 1985 K1500, Sierra Classic. Thanks for all the help, Chad. Forgot to ask... where do you get the wiring diagrams from?