Wiring harness installation

[sebbo]

Hello together,

I am currently replacing the old wiring harness in my 71 F250 with a new painless harness. I did not install the battery yet, just used a battery charger to test. My problem is that there was a part in the old harness that is not mentioned in the painless manual. I have no idea if it is needed or not and I can't find it in the wiring diagrams, although it looks factory style to me. It sits on the passenger inner fender and I think it was connected to the alternator and maybe the ignition coil, but not sure. Does anyone know, what it is and if its needed? You can see it on the pic.

After turning the key to ignition the first time with just the battery charger hooked up, the ballast resistor started to smoke. The manual says it could get quite hot, but is that ok?

Thanks for your help from Germany

Sebastian

[sargentrs]

I have no idea what that thing is. Looks like another solenoid but I've never seen anything like that. Some kind of option?

[1972hiboy]

That looks like a previous owner installed that. probabaly setup to be a battery isolator for an extra battery or a trailer or cabover.

[fordman]

The extra relay isnt factory. No the ballast shouldnt smoke. Unless it had grease or oil on it. To cook it off when it gets hot.

[sebbo]

Thanks for your help!

Still have another question. With the old wiring the parking lights were on together with low beam. As far as I know thats standard after 70. But now the parking lights are on when I pull once, and off when I pull twice and headlights are on (like pre 70). Does anyone know how to change that? My first guess was that this comes with the new light switch, so installed the old one but that didn't help. Must be the wiring... any ideas?

[fordman]

You can make the park lights come on by jumping the blue wire to the headlight power wire. U just have to figure out which one is the blue wire now. It may not be blue. Blue is dashlights. Anyway jumping the park light to the headlights will turn them on when the headlights r on.

[fordman]

Lools like its a brown wire number 984

[fordman]

Looks like its a brown wire number 984

[sebbo]

Thanks for your idea. Jumped the park light to the headlight but after that I noticed that there is no difference between pulling the switch once or twice. Park lights + low beam on both. Then I decided to jump the park light to the tail lights and now the park lights work as they should .

[Madman]

Do you by chance have pics of the installation and mate up of the wiring system? would be a nice little tutorial.

[sebbo]

I will post some pics although it's not done completely, need to change the inner fenders first. But the instructions are really good.

Still one problem to solve. The ballast resistor keeps smoking. Didn't start the engine yet, just turned on the ignition to check lights and test the starter. There is a Bosch ignition coil installed. On the coil it says that there needs to be a resistor of 1.8 Ohms. When I measure the new resistor that painless delivered with the kit it is about 0.7-0.8 Ohms when cold. The original resistor wire had 1.3 Ohms as far as I know. Doesn't seem to fit together and makes no sense to me... any ideas? Back to stock ignition coil? But then the new resistor doesn't fit either.

[fordman]

Sounds like u need to get the correct resistor for the coil.