TheJeepNut Posted April 21, 2020 Share Posted April 21, 2020 Sent mail to Painless Wiring and they stated simply that they have nothing for this vehicle and cannot help. Seemed curt and left me with the impression that they'd be uninterested in pursuing any custom work. I'd gotten the impression that they were a better comany than that but there it is. My firewall fuse boxes are intact. But insulation on wiring under the bonnet is dry and cracking on a lot of wires and I don't trust it. I'd as soon have an entire new harness firewall forward AND the interior harness as well firewall in. I'm NOT opposed to building them myself but sourcing the connectors would likely be a tremendous task as there are many variations. The other thing would be finding the plug housings themselves. I'd much rather pay someone else for the harnesses professionally prepared but if I can source the components, I CAN do it myself. Any vendors for these? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Limeyjeeper Posted April 22, 2020 Share Posted April 22, 2020 IMHO Painless lost the plot a while ago, when searching for an LS harness theirs was expensive and unimaginative. Have you tried https://www.hotwireauto.com they do a lot of custom jeep harnesses. Also Milspecwiring.com might be able to help Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
watchamakalit Posted April 22, 2020 Share Posted April 22, 2020 Have you considered a donor harness from another vehicle? I swapped the entire engine harness in mine in about an hour. It also gave me a chance to completely dissassemble the harness and inspect/repair it before installing. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TheJeepNut Posted April 22, 2020 Author Share Posted April 22, 2020 6 hours ago, watchamakalit said: Have you considered a donor harness from another vehicle? I swapped the entire engine harness in mine in about an hour. It also gave me a chance to completely dissassemble the harness and inspect/repair it before installing. An option that I'd not considered b/c I suppose any other harness that's +30 yrs old would be in no better shape. Since it's a REXIX still... (pondering that too)... I don't see anything much newer than what I've got is available. Given the connectors on mine are green in places and connector bodies melty / wires at the connectors as well melty on some... Corrosion adds resistance, adds heat, and end up at best with a failed component or at worst the truck on fire. GRANTED that's a worse case scenario, but the way things go for me.... I'm not dropping +$20k into this thing and not TRY to replace everything critical with new stuff. But maybe get several, check all the connectors and such, then make one good one out of 3 or 4, though I HATE doing that as there might be a guy out there that NEEDS a harness and can use whatever they can find. Not that I think it would be any cake walk to find 3 or 4 harnesses... Maybe I think too much. lol Buying a new harness just seems the best answer IF it can be found... more homework to come. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TheJeepNut Posted April 22, 2020 Author Share Posted April 22, 2020 13 hours ago, Limeyjeeper said: IMHO Painless lost the plot a while ago, when searching for an LS harness theirs was expensive and unimaginative. Have you tried https://www.hotwireauto.com they do a lot of custom jeep harnesses. Also Milspecwiring.com might be able to help THANKS! We shall see... messages sent today.... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Minuit Posted April 22, 2020 Share Posted April 22, 2020 I'll just say this. If you decide to rewire it yourself, if you have previous experience in this field, the hard part will be connectors. Renix isn't as bad about it as Chrysler was, but there's a fair few weird unobtanium connectors. Lots of Weather-Pack and Metri-Pack, but still a lot that you can't get anymore. You'd have wiring diagrams and splice locations in the FSM to work to, so if you're familiar with the principles of wiring harness construction it wouldn't be the worst job ever. I am not aware of any aftermarket manufacturers making new engine bay harnesses for any year of XJ. Having one custom made will be eye-poppingly expensive. "Better off to buy an entire donor truck just for the wiring harness" expensive for a true OEM quality harness, not the low-grade crap most aftermarket wiring harnesses seem to be in my experience. If the damage is isolated to a handful of circuits, it may be better to deal with the devil you know. You'd want a donor harness that has not been messed with and contains no backyard mechanic hackjobs, which is very rare for something over 30 years old. For example, some genius bypassed the A/C high pressure switch on my 89. You wouldn't want any surprises like that when transplanting a harness. Do you have any pictures of what you're dealing with? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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