rewiring a blazer... need advice PLEASE

[blazin]

i bought a american auto wiring harness kit. im told its better then a painless. has anyone installed a wiring kit before? whats a good time frame?? a day or two. or more like a 40 hour week? is it something a amatuar can do or is it more for the pros? any help would be great thanx.

[dauntless_powered]

I have done several complete rewires on older JEEP's and I realize that they are a touch simpler, but the best advice I can give you is take your time, make your connections nice and neat and set out with a plan. Once you figure out here your fuse box is going to go, seperate the harness into sections ie: engine bay, dash, front lights, and tail section and just go from there. If you have basic electronic knowledge you should be just fine. Post up any questions you have along the way and beofre you know it you should be running perfect in a little while. My first JEEP took me about four days, I can knock one out know in about 6 hours. Patience is your friend here

[blazin]

Originally Posted by dauntless_powered

I have done several complete rewires on older JEEP's and I realize that they are a touch simpler, but the best advice I can give you is take your time, make your connections nice and neat and set out with a plan. Once you figure out here your fuse box is going to go, seperate the harness into sections ie: engine bay, dash, front lights, and tail section and just go from there. If you have basic electronic knowledge you should be just fine. Post up any questions you have along the way and beofre you know it you should be running perfect in a little while. My first JEEP took me about four days, I can knock one out know in about 6 hours. Patience is your friend here

thanx dautless.. i have a friend thats a electrician.. just not in the auto department. im sure he could help me. i'd still like to get some input from guys who has installed a american auto harness kit.

[Musclerodz]

We sell them and install them. FOLLOW the directions included. They are more than adequate to walk an electric newbie through the install. By far the best kit on the market. If you run into any questions, AAW has an excellent tech line to walk you through it as well.

[blazin]

[QUOTE=Musclerodz;3925803]We sell them and install them. FOLLOW the directions included. They are more than adequate to walk an electric newbie through the install. By far the best kit on the market. If you run into any questions, AAW has an excellent tech line to walk you through it as well.[/QUOT

how many hours does it take.. aprox

thanx musclerodz

[Tom Vogel]

How many hours is an impossible question. Every blazer project will be different and your skills will be different than mine. . AAW is really good stuff. Im doing mine now (AAW Classic Update Kit) Do like Musclrodz says and follow the instructions in order. If this truck is your daily driver, borrow another car or bum rides or wait till you can be without the truck for awhile... thats just the way it will have to be.

[blazin]

i was just trying to get a "idea for a aprox time". 3 days-- a week? im in canada.. using a classic truck/car for a daily driver dont work year round lol. i just wondering if i'd be better off doing it myself.. if it would take a few days. if its a week project then i will pay someone thats done something like this before and go do what i do.

[dauntless_powered]

If you take your time and plan everything out I see no reason why 3 or 4 days(assuming 3-4 hours a day) is not a reasonable time frame for someone who has not done this before, again it all depends on how quick you catch on

[cparman]

I did an M&H engine compartment harness, and forward lamp harness in about a half a day. If you have not done this kind of work before, like someone else said take you time. I might suggest that as you remove the old harness, use masking tape and label each connector IE headlamp switch, wiper switch etc. DO NOT THROW THE OLD HARNESS AWAY. Get the old harness on the floor, and kind of lay the new one next to it. Check the connectors, and get a kind of game plan as to where you are going to start to install the new wiring. M&H and AAW are great companies, and their harness fit properly. If you Blazer is a body shell, and in the process of installing the wiring you will be reinstalling all of the other pieces it will take a while. I replaced an underdash harness, and all of the wiring firewall forward in a 68 C-10, for a customer and it took a couple of days.

[JWPOORE]

Sorry to hijack this thread, but could you tell me which AAW wiring harness you purchased and is the Blazer wiring harness the same one that would go into a Chevy truck? I have a 70 Blazer and I'm wanting to replace the wiring with updated wiring and fuse block. Thanks.

[OldCreek]

DO NOT pay someone to do this! You CAN do this yourself! The AAW kit is set up for you to do it...it's a little intimidating at first but not that big of a deal. It's good to know as much about the car your driving and after doing this you'll feel a lot more comfortable with the wiring in your blazer and other cars in general.

Give yourself a couple of days to do it...don't push yourself. You'll only get frustrated if you do so. The kit is all inclusive but get yourself a good set of the small wiring snips/strippers. You may need some extra electrical tape and I like having extra plastic wiring loom to keep everthing looking clean.

The blazer harness is the same as the truck.

Good luck and have fun! This is why YOU own these old blazers/trucks!

[snj8198]

I just started installing an AAW into my '71 today. It is not difficult but will take a few days trying to make it as neat and clean as possible. AAW really put some thought into this harness and made it installer friendly. Get plenty of zip ties, wiring loom, tape and take your time. You'll be proud of yourself when finished. Have fun! -steve

[72gmcshorty]

another thing that would probably help alot is to look at the wiring diagram thats on this site in the faq to get an idea of what goes where...

[Musclerodz]

Originally Posted by blazin

i was just trying to get a "idea for a aprox time". 3 days-- a week? im in canada.. using a classic truck/car for a daily driver dont work year round lol. i just wondering if i'd be better off doing it myself.. if it would take a few days. if its a week project then i will pay someone thats done something like this before and go do what i do.

truck disassembled and everything accessible? a long weekend with a buddy. You have to take the truck apart? add a day or two.

[fun in dirt]

I just recently finished putting one of these AAW complete harnesses in a '67 Chevelle. I'm slow...it took me about 2 weeks...that was 2 whole Saturdays & a few hours after work about 3 days a week. This was with the interior totally out & included time to reinstall the dash & heater work stuff. It is not hard but very tedious work. The connections took awhile to make neatly as I didn't have the "correct pliers", that you can rent from them of course.
The only real problem I had was on the dash harness. They had 2 wires swapped in the main plug (the right turn & oil press light), both were dark blue & when I turned on the right blinker the oil pressure light blinked. After about 30 minutes of standing on my head under the dash with a flashligh in my mouth I found the problem & got them switched around.

But it all in all it turned out very nice...just take your time & read through all the diagrams & footnotes to be familiar with the overall idea before starting anything.

DO IT ALL YOURSELF...When you finish it is so cool to see everything work & especially at night with everything lit up!!!

[blazin]

thanx everyone for the advice.. everything works with the 37 year old wiring, i just want to redo it so its all new. so maybe i should wait till the fall and start it. most people on this site are super friendly and helpfull. cheers

[blazin]

Originally Posted by JWPOORE

Sorry to hijack this thread, but could you tell me which AAW wiring harness you purchased and is the Blazer wiring harness the same one that would go into a Chevy truck? I have a 70 Blazer and I'm wanting to replace the wiring with updated wiring and fuse block. Thanks.

the harness is the same for truck, blazer and burbs. i bought the classic update kit. it comes fully complete. i dont know much about this but this kit has everything you'd need.

[FRENCHBLUE72]

Keep us posted as the how the harness works for ya..

[blazin]

Originally Posted by FRENCHBLUE72

Keep us posted as the how the harness works for ya..

i think i found a auto electrician thats retired to do it for $20 a hour. as much as i would love to do it... i'd rather a pro did it and i stick with doing everything else. he's on vacation for 2 weeks, then its time to get er done. i'll keep ya posted on it tho.

[woodymm3]

I did one myself a year or so ago with a kwik wire 12 fuse block and it was relatively easy. you need to get some new wire heads, napa had everything i needed... the hardest part was trying to decide where to mount it and run the wires through the firewall. other than that there were a couple tricky things that i figured out along the way, but i am definately not a wire biter... it took me about a week start to finish working on it about an hour a night.