The Stovebolt Site Forums The Shop Area The Electrical Bay Wiring - cloth vs. vinyl

Before I spend my year's allowance on a cloth wiring harness I would like to confirm that it was indeed cloth that was used on a '51 3100.
My confusion comes from looking at the Factory Assembly Manual with refers to colours such as plain, violet, tan etc. Are these the trace colours? They don't seem to be consistent with the wiring diagrams found in the shop manual.
It is going to be a lot of money and I would like to get it right.
Thanks as always for any insight.

Peter_H,

If you are trying to keep your truck COMPLETELY as it came from the factory then I would suggest the cloth covered wiring. Much more expensive. If not, the high temperature vinyl will work. Much less expensive. Most of the cloth covered wiring harnesses today have the high temp vinyl under the cloth sheath.

Hope this helps.

Tim

Peter H,

They used cloth up until until late 1953. My 53, was made in the first part of year and had a cloth wiring harness. You may have some idea where you want to get the harness from. I am not familiar with the companies in Canada. However, if you have not made up your mind, you might want to call YnZ Yesterday Parts. They make a beautiful reproduction of our wiring harness. They can even put in the extra wires for a turn signal option. No doubt, they could make your harness any way you want it. Of course, they don't give them away. I am pretty sure that is the vendor, for a number of the companies that sell our reporduction truck parts. Hope this helps.

Rugo

The 47-55 FAM used illustrations for 1954/55 trucks. As Rugo posted, those years' trucks used plastic-coated wires/harnesses.

OK I am going to go for it.
Thanks Rugo for lead to YnZ. So, I now have three suppliers to look at; YnZ, Rhode Island Wiring and Vintage Wiring of Maine.
Does anyone have experience with any of them? They all appear to be delivering quality products at pretty much the same price.

I've used YnZ and Rhode Island on past projects. Both were excelent, we're show quality and met my needs.

Bob

I've used YNZ on my '38 exclusively. I did a price comparison between YNZ and Road Island & found YNZ to be a bit cheaper (about 10%) while still excellent quality. That's been several years so I don't know if that's still the case. I've not heard of Vintage Wiring so I can't say anything about them good or bad. My recommendation would be to do an apples to apples price comparison before making up your mind.

Tim, thanks for explaining why my shop and installation manuals don't match. It drove me nuts.

I have one more question. How did they attach the wires from the front head and parking and brake lights to the harness? Mine have push in male and female connectors. I want to do it as close to the original look as I can.

My 54/55 wiring light-attachments are probably a little different from yours, except for the headlamps.

The bulbs have three "prongs/blades" and the headlamp leads from the terminal block on the firewalls should have a 3-lead socket.

How do the tail lights connect?

I know this is a bit off track for this thread, but I am thoroughly confused about what wiring is correct for a 54 1/2 ton.

I also thought the wiring was vinyl covered until I contacted Vintage Wiring of Maine, and coincidentally looked at my dome light. Vintage Wiring of Maine focuses their business on show quality 100% correct wiring and claim they only build cloth covered harnesses, and my dome light also has a short cloth covered wired from the switch to the bulb socket.

Any thoughts????

They may try to provide 100% correct wiring. But if they provide cloth/braided-covered wiring harnesses for a 1954 Chevrolet truck, they are wrong.

However, I think at least one of my 54 trucks had cloth-covered wire on dome light housing from switch to bulb. I do not recall finding any other cloth covered wires. I'll try to remember to look at a few of my 54 dome light fittings tomorrow.

By the way, is your dome light lens plastic or glass?

I was told by one of the suppliers that I was talking to that Chev "finally allowed" vinyl wrapping on their harnesses in 1953. They still used cloth covered wires though so it was a mix for a while.

Yes, the changeover took place in 1953.