Anyone replaced the harness on a IIA?

[ukoffroad]

What did you spend, any tips or suggestions? The more I dig, the crazier it seems to get.

[JSBriggs]

I bought a hot rod harness from keepitcleanwiring.com (similar to painless) for under $200. Still haven't installed it, but it has a nice size fuse block. I can get a couple pics if you want.

-Jeff

[ukoffroad]

Thanks, that would be helpful. Troy recommended British Wiring, and they just quoted me about $300 and have it in stock.

[grnrvrs]

Not hard, if you are methodical. Label everything as you disassemble, then assembly is 'easy.' British Wiring and Autosparks are both good suppliers.

[1962siia88]

The harness is pretty basic and the wires are colored for the most part so pretty straight forward. At one point I had pics of everything behind the gauges because I was nervous about gettin it together right. I'll dig I see if I still have them if you want.

Daniel

[evilfij]

Really easy if you use the proper factory replica harness. Figure on some new ends including headlight pigtails etc.

[JSBriggs]

Here are the pics of the harness I got. I have 12 fuses with the option of adding 3 more (as opposed to the stock 4 glass fuses). All of the wire is color coded and labeled. It is a bit more work than a 'stock' harness, but better overall IMO.

-Jeff

[TeriAnn]

So far, I have scratch built wiring harnesses for five Series Land Rovers and heavily modified one and have a couple suggestions.

1. If you were rebuilding a stock truck and planing to keep it stock go with a company called British Wiring (http://www.britishwiring.com). They can provide you with a prebuilt harness that fits your truck and uses the British wiring standard for cars (i. e. correct coloured wires per the factory manuals), British Standards Institution # BS-AU7, Colour code for vehicle wiring.

They also sell correct colour coded wire, all the fittings you would need to build and install a harness and importantly the correct tooling to make a proper bullet connector crimp.

2. I would stay away from generic harnesses. Wire lengths will be wrong & there will be wires in the harness you likely would have no use for and the colour code would not match any of the Rover documentation. Much more work than a factory style harness built specifically for your truck and a minus if you ever sell the truck.

3. If you are going for a custom scratch built harness I have a few suggestions:



Use the colour code (http://www.expeditionlandrover.info/Lucaswirecode.htm). A plus when anyone needs to troubleshoot a problem. not a negative if you go to sell the truck.
The dual ignition/headlamp switch used on earlier trucks were meant to handle only about 13 amps max and the very expensive switch will die of you run it long with too much power going through it. The best way to use the switch along with lots of switched accessories is to wire the ignition switch so all it does is switch on a high current handling relay which in turn handles power for all the switched electrics.
You can run higher power headlamps and your horn can be louder if you add relays on the headlamp & horn circuits.
A lot of the fuse wires go from inside the bulkhead to the fuse box on the outside then back through the bulkhead to the inside. You can simplify the wiring bundle going through the bulkhead by moving the fuses inside to the cubby box area opposite the steering wheel.
The wiring behind the main instrument panel is a rats nest that can be a pain to stuff inside to affix the panel. It can be cleaned up a LOT by adding a barrier strip to the inside bulkhead behind the main panel. Make all the connections between the main instrument panel and the rest of the truck at the barrier strip using ring connectors. Run the wires between the barrier strip and main panel in a bundled C shaped loop. You will eliminate a lot of barrel connectors and minimize the chances that a wire will pull out of a connector as you R&R the main panel.

Anyway these are just suggestions so feel free to do the wiring any way that seems right to you.

[kjva]

I have never used a Rover harness from Britsh Wiring but sold dozens of harness for classic Britsh bikes from same manafacturer and they good quality and just about standard on a British resto. She the the guys sister by the way.

[ukoffroad]

looks like British is the easiest path to do it right the first time.