Dash wiring question

[Koniosis]

Building a custom wooden interior and dash for a 91 ranger that was involved in a glove box fire that melted half the dash. I have the dash out and the wiring harness exposed. All the wires around the steering column are good, truck seems to run fine still. Everything to the right of the column is pretty thrashed. I don't plan on putting any of the center modules back in like the radio, ac control, etc. my question is, what wires can be removed from the harness without a negative effect? Can I just lop off the bundled harness right past the steering column or should I just leave it and hide everything behind the new dash? Are there any hot wires that might cause a short if I leave it? All I want is instrument cluster and headlight switch to function. Any advice would be greatly appreciated. Thanks!

 

[franklin2]

Don't leave any wires just cut and hanging, that would probably give you electrical gremlins later.

You will have hot wires for the cluster illumination, Ford usually used a lightblue/red. If this line shorted out it would blow the fuse and then your speedo and other instruments would be dark.

I would be careful with the cigarette lighter wires, they may be lightgreen/yellow and are hot all the time. Some of the Fords used this circuit for the code reader port.

Then you have what might be a brown wire going to the heater fan under the hood. They usually ran the hot wire to the fan, and then controlled the fan ground to make it run and run at different speeds.

You will most likely want to keep the domelight wiring. There will be some that runs across the dash to the door switch on the pass side. I want to say it is black/lightgreen.

I would carefully snip these wires off and give them some length, incase later on you need to go through and search for one you might need later. A small blue wire nut screwed on the end of the wire may be all you need. I would say tape them off, but sometimes tape gets gooey and falls off in the summer heat.

 

[Curious Hound]

I agree that all unused wires need to be capped of and insulated. You may be able to remove fuses for some things. Unplugging harnesses at the last closest junction is also a good idea. The radio will have a 2 power wires. One key on hot wire, one for panel lighting and maybe a third continuous hot for memory. Speaker wires can be removed. A/C system, you can remove the fuse. I think the glove box light comes from the dome light/cargo light/door open chime circuit.