Engine wiring harness over or under the fuel lines?

[Natedog]

Finally getting ready to fire my 87 Ranger again. Just have to finish plugging in the under hood wireing.

Question, on the left (driver's side) of the engine, is the big fat wiring harness supposed to go over or under the fuel lines? Also a couple of the big plugs on the end of this that plug into the bunch of wires on the driver's innner fender have no insulation on them where the go into the backside of the plugs. There is also some light corrosion (green) visible on these three wires (two different plugs). One of the wires is also fraying and brittle. For now I'm just plugging it all together and praying it works. But in the long term, what should I do about this?

 

[MAKG]

I really doubt this matters. Assemble it whatever way is easiest.

 

[Natedog]

Yeah, I know I get too detail oriented sometimes, like to eliminate chafing, etc under the hood. I ran it over and now that I finished it looks like under the fuel lines but over the crankcase breather hose.

ANy suggestions for my bare fraying, slightly corroded wires at the big plugs on driver's inner fender?

 

[MAKG]

Not all of them are used all the time, so the empty ones you can leave alone or seal up in electrical tape or heat-shrink. The non-empty ones can be yanked from a (self service) junkyard, and some of them can be repaired. You can get some types of replacement pins from the auto parts store. You then remove the pins from the connector (there is a tool for this, or a very small pocket screwdriver often works), cut them off below the corrosion, crimp and solder new pins on the wires and reinstall in the same locations as original.

If you really want to go that far. I'd go the junkyard route myself.

 

[Natedog]

Yeah my spare harness out of my other truck is same way. WOuld be nice to have the pins, special crimper and new plastic piece.

 

[MAKG]

I'm not sure you need a special crimper. I certainly didn't when I went through this exercise with my Chevy. Just a pliers.

I strongly suggest soldering. I don't like crimp connections. They aren't weather-tight, and sometimes they get loose mechanically and come apart. A good solder connection will never do that.

 

[Natedog]

For every connector there is a special crimping tool/die. I used to buy the connectors by the roll and my company had an automated crimping machine for manufacturing wiring harnesses. I don't have access to that stuff anymore. Crimping and soldering both have good and bad sides to them....usually crimping is fine as long as it is all properly sealed from the elements. Liquid electrical tape is great stuff.

 

[Natedog]

Picked up a plug and leadwires from the self service wreckers last week....will be cutting and soldering in the good used wires to my frayed old wires and plug shell.