Painless Fuse blocks

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prostr340duster

prostr340duster

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Just curious if anyone has replaced their stock fuse blocks with the painless? Possible looking at putting the 18 in. My stock one was messed up when I purchased the car. Looks as if the low beam had melted.
 
Seen way too many posts saying how bad painless stuff is on various boards. Look into the American auto wire highway series kits. They are a universal street rod style kit but you can adapt it to your car. I have a highway 22 kit from American auto wire going in my dart in the near future. Have the kit all bought just have to get the time ti do the install.
 
I've used 3 EZ-Wiring kits in cars (2 bucket T's and an Excaliber kit car) and have been totally satisfied - good phone tech support. I did try a Painless in one and it was just too expensive considering the competition. My '50 Plymouth came with a Francis setup and I think I'd still just stick to the EZ-Wiring myself. I'm getting ready to replace all the wiring in my '62 Triumph Herald and it will be EZ-Wiring.
 
i agree with all of the above. the word is "painless is anything but". i went with EZ but it was a toss up between them and american autowire.
 
one of the things i like about the american kit is you hook the wires to the fuse box. this way you can locate it where you want and run the wires where you want. the ez kit and most of the others are pre-wired boxes. kinda limits ya.

the american kit
500695.jpg



ez kit is definatley cheaper but cheaper is not always better, especially when it comes to wiring your car . the ez kit looks cheap when compared to a highway series american auto kit. http://www.ezwiring.com/wiring_harness.html

ezwire.jpg




either way stay away from painless..lol



.
 
here are a couple of things that are really nice about the american kit.


New front loaded vibration proof self- locking (Hooke's Law) screw down terminal connection this keeps the connections at the fuse box from vibrating loose and it also keeps the wire strands grouped together unlike other kits. others just use the head of the screw to hold the wires. that spreads the strands out and also can vibrate loose after use. and god knows our cars will and do vibrate around while driving.

highway-hookes-law.jpg




8 gauge alternator feed wire provided nice gauge quality wire.


Spare circuits available (for power windows, locks, cruise, etc.). very nice for expansion if ya want to..

Panel protected with a 175 amp Mega-Fuse junction block with a 8 gauge panel feed wire nice to have it protected like this.

All power circuits wires are 12 gauge constructed nice high quality wire is used in the kit



here are the details of the kit i bought. http://www.americanautowire.com/highway22.html yes they say its colored gm like but really, who cars if it will work and keep the car from burning to the ground. just have a good wire diagram for your car and it shouldn't be too hard to wire things up. most kits are probably colors gm like anyway.
 
I've said it before, the EZ kit is the way to go, but not the one pictured above.

Use the 20 ckt mini panel.

e-z20[1].gif

The 80's GM style panel is too big and a bear to mount. The American Wire kit is a bit easier to mount, but those panels where you attach your wire at the panel are huge and only grow as you add wiring. The finished product usuually looks like hell and I don't care which principle is involved, you want to avoid screw down type connections onto stranded wire like the plague.

e-z20[1].gif
 
you want to avoid screw down type connections onto stranded wire like the plague.
Click to expand...


i don't agree with that. american auto wires lock down system works very well. infact they have a display when they goto shows with their locking system joining two wires together and challenge you to pull it apart. it locks them down big time. to me that ez wire kit looks cheap. how are the wires attached intot he box on those kits? crimped? screwed or soldered?. would love to see one in person. any system can look like crap if installed by a hack. i've seen multiple highway series kids done very nicely. the highway series has the flashers and relays built right into the box which is cleaner looking to me. its also protected by a mega fuse which makes it even safer in my opinion. let that mega fuse blow instead of burning my car to the ground..lol.

i can't find anything on their site on how they attach the wired to the box, if the system is protected at all by anything other then the fuse box. hell they don't have much info at all on their site. just a small pic and the price. http://www.ezwiring.com/wiring_harness.html .
 
I used the EZ kit as well.

I have a friend who builds Mopar resto mods and uses EZ on all of them.

Great price and quality, big, fat wires and each wire is labeled where it goes the entire length of the wire.
The only problem I had with mine was last week my turn signal flasher quit so I got a new one at O'Reily's.

switch-5.jpg
 
with the ez kit what do you do about the unused wires, bundle them up? snip them off (what if you need it later)? i would like to find a fuse box similar to the one in the american kit, i have spools of my own wire.....
 
I clip and cap them off about 4" from the fuse box. The unused wire gets spooled up and put in a coffee can (the kind with a plastic top) and the can is labeled for the car the extras came from. When I need to add a device back in, I pull the proper wire out of the can and put it in place. If I sell the car, the can goes to the new owner. The new plastic coffee "cans" are really fantastic for this.
 
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