The Stovebolt Site Forums The Shop Area The Electrical Bay Selecting a Wire Harness

I've got a 1949 1/2-ton truck that I'll be re-wiring soon. I want to use modern, plastic coated wire, and upgrade to 12-volts, but otherwise keep the truck original. There are at least a dozen different wire harnesses on the market. Any suggestions on a qood quality, reasonable cost manufacturer for my application?? I want to make one minor change. The truck has a trailer hitch that I want to keep. I want to wire in a hook-up for trailer lights.

If you want a good quality, reasonably priced harness that is plastic coated and has the original number of lines (plus lines for turn signals - you might want to call to confirm this), check out Classic Parts of America (Chevy Duty).

A 6v harness works fine with 12v conversion. Classic Parts of America sells a generator and an alternator version.

Keep an eye on EBay. Seems like most of the kits are decent quality / well marked. A lot of the kits have extra circuits in case you want to add power windows / AC / etc. I used a Painless Kit and found the Tech Services people great with the questions I had.

You can keep the original look AND use modern parts. YNZ sells harnesses that have modern plastic insulated wires with the original looking cloth over the outside of that. They aren't cheap but they are very high quality.

I sure like the EZ-Wire kit (and it's price!) ... See All My Notes Here

Thanks, guys. Is there some advantage to installing the fuses under the dash? Can I use an EZ or YnZ harness and keep the fuses in their orginal location (engine side of the firewall)?

I don't like the idea of fuses being on the engine side of the firewall because of possible exposure to water (weather) ... but the choice is yours.

Has anyone bought and used the YnZ harness? I am most likely going to go with them for my 1957 Chevy P/U. But would like to know if others used their product. I really would like to know if the connectors are just like the original..especially the ones that plug onto the back of the speedo...Thanks!

UnklRod, i've used YnZ on 3 of my builds and all of them were excellent. I used them on a '46, '51, and a '53. I don't know what there '57 wires are like, but judgeing by what i have got, id say your pretty save to get factory correct wires. Cecil.........