Featured Technical How many hours would it take to wire a '32 Ford?

Did the OP ever come back?

 

Nope. No time for the HAMB. Stuck half way through a wiring job. Maybe in June..........

 

It seems that anything I do always takes 2-5 times longer than what I’ve seen posted by other folks. Makes me wonder if I’m that “special”, or if folks just BS the time they’ve spent. Most of my time is spent “head scratching”, researching, buying parts, picking up parts, looking for parts, looking for tools, putting tools away (to make room to actually do some work), and running back into town to buy stuff I either forgot, or didn’t know I needed until I started head scratching. Actual “work” time is just a fraction of the time spent on above. So, how long it takes depends on what you count as “time spent”. Lol!

 

An absolutely loaded coupe sans interior about 40 hours.
Since 1957 I have wired a good 35 cars.
Retired master electrician in 23 jurisdictions.
I prefer a Ron Francis kit.
Jim Mothershead, Street Rod Works

 

............and if your battery is in the trunk the ground cable should be a 1/0 straight up to the 3/8" bolt on the bell housing closest to the starter. A #10 ground to the frame. Use a grounding block near the steering column with a #10 to the block. All grounds should be the same wire gauge as the positive feed to the item. Headlights should have a dedicated ground to the block. Electric fans should have all wires #14 AWG.
All good things take time.

 

I use 1/2" plywood, one side smooth sanded, yes expensive, on the firewall and floors thru the trunk. It will not warp. That way you always have an attachment point for wiring and what ever.
Temporarily use grocery store twisties on the wiring harness. When 100% finished, use tie wraps then remove the twisties.
I will ONLY wire a car sans interior.

 

Back in the day, fifties and sixties, I would always buy a donor car for the drive train and the wiring harness....a crashed five-five Chevy for example. Then Ron Francis went in to business = the best.
With old faithful started in 1985, I bought a crashed 1985 Iroc, 942 miles, for $500. Used the original harness for 2 years while I figured out all the goodies = two years to wire while driving, har, har. Then went to a Ron Francis kit. In 147,281 miles it has NEVER blown a fuse or any other electrical issue.

 

@Jim Mothershead you bring up something that I thought about but didn't mention and nobody else said either. If this is a 'glass '32, the grounds for everything are going to add a bunch more time.

 

Figure some time for making the brackets for the battery cables if mounted in the trunk. Takes time to do those and put grommets in them to protect the cables. Same thing when you pass a wire bundle through the frame, fire wall. ect.

 

20-25 Hours for someone knowing what they are doing. This does not include wiring removal.

 

I went off the deep end with mine. I made a harness board, a formal wire list in Excel. Made up a binder with the instruction book and my notes.

I had the dash out anyway, made things a breeze. I had the interior out too, and painted the floor pan. I made myself comfy with a Harbor Fright packing blanket on the front floor.

 

I hate to admit it, but this simple harness took me a few days to wire up. Not full days, but still…and it’s not permanent, only for start up, but wanted an idea what it will kinda of end up like in reality.

 

How long is a piece of string? Why would people buy a panel that has all the wiring already hooked to it? Do you just cut all the unused wires off or coil them up?

 

Exactly!!. Jim Mothershead mentioned in his first post he preferred Ron Francis. Their harnesses have the connectors attached to the long-length free wires, not attached to the fuse panel. Makes much more sense, and your dealing with one wire at a time, not the full harness. That's a big concern, especially if your dealing with something like my 94 wires engine harness on the OT engine/tranny.
My '57 is wired (as Ron Francis advises) as though it was a fiberglass car. After 7 years, 77k miles, of driving, I've never had a wiring OR GROUND issue.
No made-in-China wires such as your going to get when you make the talked-about runs to the local parts store.
75 responses, and none from the OP!

 

Things to think about -- at typical shop rates of say $100 per hour (yes, I know, it will vary - some are a lot more, some less) - you're talking about $5000 for 50 hours of work. That doesn't include any fuse panels, kits, wiring, connectors or components.

There is nobody going to do this work (correctly) for $500 - $1200 . . . unless they aren't running a business and don't need the money.

 

I had a 1959 ford dash cut down in a 32 glass 3 window coupe. using the original gauges It cost me 4000 can. for the work worth every penny. All the gauges work fine even the trouble lights for oil and temp.

 

I wired my 32 Ford roadster (with SBC) from scratch this past fall and it took me around 60 hours total. I soldered every connection, no crimps. The guage cluster took quite awhile to neatly assemble and wire, probably 8-10 hours.
I was stoopid about it though and used a NOS Centech fuse panel which has NO relays for headlights, tail lights and brake lights. It is ill-engineered and that's probably why they are no longer in business. I had to add an auxiliary fuse panel for the relays and some other fuses.
Half way through the wiring, I found Coach Controls and the lights went on over my head - it fixes EVERYTHING that was a pain with the setup I have. I almost ripped it all out as started over with a Coach panel.
https://coachcontrols.com/
You don't have to buy their wires, but their fuse panel has everything built-in including many relays.

Check out my build thread to learn from some of my pitfalls.
https://www.jalopyjournal.com/forum...-cars-but-never-a-32-roadster.1244478/page-17

 

I respectfully disagree, I purchased some kits from Ron Francis and didn't use half of the circuits or wires. Many of the pig-tails and plugs didn't have much use and actually hindered my completion. I bought a lot of silicon jacketed copper wire (which is very pliable) from Amazon and wired most of it from scratch...proved WAY less expensive.
Larger shows, like NSRA always have a guy selling plugs, pigtails, switches, LED's, etc.. for low $. I bought several components from the guy at the Burlington VT show.

My 2 cents~

 

I would think 40 hours wouldn't be out of the realm of reality.

 

It Goes Along Fairly Fast Once You Start And The Advisors Go Home...

 

So, is it done yet? We've been talking for a week.

 

I guess the cost of wiring will be more than the chrome plating.

 

I can do wiring. Chrome is a bit more challenging.

 

I wired mine with a Rebel, but I'm a dick. I did shit like this to make it seem legit.


I modified the new harness to use the OG light switch in the column.
Lots of other tidbits which seem to fit how I want to see things. I also had a very dear friend help as wiring race cars is his side hustle and he's damn good at it. Using the old lacquered loom stuff blew his mind a little. We have over 40hrs in it and I still have to connect it all and add a few things yet. I don't care if I have another 30 or 40 once it's turnkey. It takes me 7 to 10 working days to wire a Packard with a new authentic harness.

 

First thing I thought of. I'd like to rewire my eyeballs [soon], three fingers, four toes and my back.

 

A 1932 Ford isn't that much bigger than a Model A, so the time to wire one would be the same, correct?

 

And I thought I was the only one who lost sleep over that decision. I decide where to cut, and then end up making it a couple of inches longer "just in case".

 

I have wired a lot of cars over the past 40 some years and I agree with the 40 hour mark. I will also give you my feelings on harnesses since I have used a lot of different ones. This is just my opinion for what that is worth! Painless and American Autowire I feel are the best in quality and customer service but are also expensive. Ron Francis is the worst, they are the most expensive, absolutely horrible customer service, the most time consuming to install and they take up a lot of room since the wires come out of all four sides. I have also had the most voltage drop issues with them. The Speedway 12 circuit mini panel isn't too bad for the price although the printed lettering isn't the best. I have actually had good luck with EZ Wiring but zero customer service and a terrible manual so you really need to have some experience with this one. I'm sure I will get flack about Ron Francis but after multiple bad experiences I have nothing good to say.

 

He didn't mention it but with blown motor & transbrake it is going onto the racy side of things, I'm thinking MSD box, 2step rev limiter, tach & shift light or shift solenoid, battery in the back? well, that means battery disconnect switch, that and the 1st time you bust loose a blown engine on the transbrake I'll wager wireing will be the furthest thing from his mind, he'll be doing some serious chassis and rollcage work, know what I mean?

 

And that’s why the back of my dash looks like a birds nest