I have a 1958 Edsel that I need some electrical help with. The car ran fine and then I had some electrical issues. I need to either re-wire the whole car or just part of it (engine compart.) as a few wires fried and smoked! Any one know a guy in the Austin area? Thanks, Matt
Really, my best advice is call @REBEL43 and get a new harness for the car. Why mess with old brittle wires when you can have nice new wires that are labled where they go, modern fuses and all that good stuff. Best of all its pretty simple to install, and youll KNOW the car has good electical in it
With all the new harnesses out there, you should be able to do it yourself.. If you go slow, it's really not that hard to do.. Plus you can say "I did it myself"....
It might be a little spendy, but you could get a restoration replacement engine compartment harness if the car is mostly stock. Check in Hemmings, Ford Barn advertisers etc. Not knocking the Rebel harness, I'm using one myself.
This might be helpful https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.classiccarwiring.com/amp/edsel/ https://edselclub.org/bauer/ Phil
45 minutes south of Austin, in New Braunfels, is a small 2-man shop that is just wrapping up my wiring harness job. I'm too old to be crawling under dashboards, engine compartments, and chassis. If you have more money than time, they could do you right. Holmes Hot Rods and Cycles They are right on I-35. PM me for more info if you are interested.
If you're going to consider doing it youself, being an Edsel, I'd recommend checking with Ron Francis Wiring. Their harnesses are made for YOUR car, and not the universal GM styled harnesses that most others sell. The best quality and instructions/design so good, if you can read, you can wire your car. I had never done any wiring previously, and was doing my chassis harness and OT efi wiring harness at the same time. I had to call them once to clarify what I thought was a discrepancy between the engine harness instructions and the chassis harness. It was a 5 minute conversation. It actually turned out to be a fun project. I have had zero electrical issues in 4 years and 34k miles. They are a bit more pricey, but as said, you can't beat the quality. No Chinese wiring in my car, thank you.
both of these give you good choices as to cost if you hire someone to wire your car(even just engine compartment)they will probably want to charge on a time and material basis which can be a very expensive thing.buying a harness made for your car will be a much easier job and the money you save will more than offset the cost of harness.unless you are colour blind it is pretty well a plug and play deal
Call Mike at Cross Roads Restorations (12209 Twin Creeks Rd, Manchaca TX 78652, 512-998-3517, [email protected]).
Even if your colorblind it won't matter. Here's how the Ron Francis Express kit is set up.......You will get the fuse panel, it's all wired internally, but no wires connected to it (a very good thing in my book). Any accesory that is wired with connectors will have all the wires installed into the connector. You plug it in to where it goes following the step by step instructions. You will have enough wire on all of those connectors to run all the way back to the trunk should you chose to install it there. (On your edsel, I'd install the fuse panel on the driver's side kick panel...no need to run them all the way back to the trunk) The time consuming part of the wiring is running them neatly, but that is so much easier done when just the connector is prewired. Run the wires back to the fuse panel or other destinations as required. Each wire will be numbered as to which terminal it gets hooked to, it is also printed with where it came form, AND is color matched to the terminals. You will find you have a ton of wire length left, but don't trim or connect to anything at this point. After all the wires are connected to the devises, then start bundling to keep everything neat. At that point, after all the wires are bundled neatly, you can start trimming to final length and adding the terminals. At the fuse panel, start on one end and work your way around the panel, that way you can bundle really neatly as you go. One added tip...I took Ron Francis' suggestion and wired my car as if it were a fiberglass car. Nothing is grounded to the body. It's all wired grounds. Makes grounding issues almost disappear and easy to find. Yes, it's additional time and wiring, but 95% of electrical problems are faulty grounds.
That's a good idea. The wiring on this car is not simple like a hotrod. I have basic wiring knowledge and would not want to use a "universal" kit for this car. I plan to wire my 1931 Chevy but would prefer either a) a wiring harness specifically for the Edsel or B) pay someone to wire it properly who knows what they are doing. Just weighing out my options at this point. Thanks Matt
I used a kwik wire in my '59 Ford, close to the Edsel. It went pretty well and I took my time. Make up a plywood harness board to help you sort out the kit. I had a copy of the car schematic which I recommend having.
Man, I'm sounding like a salesman for Ron Francis........Bob, everything you mentioned, especially having to "sort out the kit", is exactly the kind of stuff avoided with an Express kit. I sure didn't want to deal with a harness with all the wires already connected for numerous reasons........much easier on the mind to deal with one wire or connector at a time. I'd much rather install a ring terminal on a wire than deal with those male and female pin type terminals that snap into a connector. I'm assuming his harness would have multiple wire connectors....maybe not unless he's got a late model efi engine. No figuring, no oem diagram needed. I seem to recall the express instructions stating if you are comparing to an oem diagram, to follow RF instructions, not the oem. They can and do change things because, well, wiring in general is highly advanced over what was done in the 50's. Not mentioned previously, ALL wires in the RF kit are dual jacket crosslinked poly-(something). The first jacket is heat resistant, and the outer jacket is abrasion resistant. I believe the grade is SXL or GSL...bad memory, sorry. The kind of stuff Ron Francis can do for you........I'm using a late model Mustang steering column with an ignition switch that has a dozen wires. The ignition switch wiring came with that connector pre-wired. Plug it in and run the wires to their destinations as instructed AND printed on each wire. How simple is that? My cooling fan is off a 90's Lincoln. Same there....wiring had the proper connector prewired. If you're a Ford guy in particular, you need to know and support Ron Francis Wiring.
My 14-circuit kit has about 50 wires in it. A few circuits I have yet to use like radio and electric choke. The hardest part is placing the fuse block.
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