Hiya. Welp, started the rewire, and so far so good... Except: I’m having a helluva time trying to fish the rear harness through the body. The original harness goes up thru the A-pillar, across the drivers side rail, down the C-pillar and into the trunk. I’ve tried to run a fish tape up through the A-pillar, but it jams up somewhere in the side rail. I’ve also tried to pull the old harness out both from the trunk and from under the A-pillar with no luck. Anyone intimately familiar with ‘50 Mercury bodies that could shed some light? Thanks! Couple of pictures of the sausage-making process:
Sometimes you can pull the new wires through using the old wires. I had to snake 2 dome light wires through the a-pillar of my '59 Ford, I can't imagine a whole bunch. Do you have to use the pillar? My Ford from the factory had it go right along the transmission tunnel, out the back seat and into the trunk and it was a breeze.
If you have too many wires in the bundle, you can split them up and run some up the other side. Sent from my SM-T350 using The H.A.M.B. mobile app
We use this conduit to run the wires along the floor. Since the carpet pad is usually about the same thickness it works well at protecting the wires. I think the bodies of the 50's Ford Mercury's are built much the same so this should apply to your wire route problems . Double sided carpet tape was used to hold the conduit in place.You may need to run two conduits if you are running a lot of wires to the rear. The wire comes out of the conduit and then runs in the open space in the quarter panel.
Thanks for everybody's input. Yep. Tried that, but even pulling individual wires yielded no movement. Well, not exactly no movement, but only 1/4" either direction and that's it. I think that there might be clips in the side rail that hold the harness in. I know this much: the side rail isn't fully enclosed. After some poking and twisting, I was able to send 20 feet of fish tape up through there with ease and nothing came out in the quarter. I'm pretty sure it was leisurely coiling up in the headliner... That is a great little item, thanks for the tip! I don't want to pull the backseat out though (which I would have to do to get to the quarter cavity) for a variety of reasons, not the least of which is just laziness. I've decided to run the rear wires out through the firewall with the others, then into conduit run along the frame between the body mounts. At the very rear, in the trunk floor, there's a grommet where the fuel sending unit and license plate lamp would ordinarily drop down under the trunk deck. Instead, I'll run the taillight wires up through that grommet. That's the plan, anyway. I'll post updates and pics when I git'er done. Thanks for the consideration, fellas! CH
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