Prior to starting the wiring I pulled the e-brake parts out and got them repainted and redone. The handle is one I made for the wagon, but swapped it out so I could keep it. Took me a few hours to make, made out of solid steel, so decided to keep it. Freddie is the new recipient.

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Gene came over Friday and put in some new rear shocks for me. I had a set of new Monroe SensaTrack shocks that have overload springs, which I pulled off the Ranchero. As you may recall I wanted to swap out the leaf springs, but the ones I got from Larry were too long, so because the whole 5-lug swap is on hold, maybe these will help with Freddie's sagging underside.

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Then onto the wiring. I'm making a hybrid 63 and 65 wiring for this. Thankfully I save, and look for, wiring harnesses to scavenge from. You need lots of bits and pieces to do this sort of thing.

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There are some advantages to moving up a couple years in wiring. The main one being the better fuse placement - OFF the headlight switch! I'll use the 65 headlight switch. I'm adding in a couple extra power terminals as well as another remote fuse block on switched power.

Some of the other differences are that the horn on a 63 uses a under-hood switch, which I will maintain (horn button carries ground circuit, not being the 12v switch itself). Also the 63 turn signal wires use bullet connectors and the 65 use a Molex style connector. To maintain the 63 horn and the turn signal switch, I had to change all the wires going to the column. I also removed the pink resistor wire since Freddie has aftermarket ignition (mostly) and can use full 12v there. Also the 65 harness has the internal brake light switch connector, which I prefer.

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So here's the finished harness. I also reworked the under-hood harness to feed the starter solenoid, heater motor, and sending units (if I use them). Not sure on the later.

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So the next wires to do are the other under-hood wires going forward to the headlights and horns. With the one-wire alternator there will not be as many wires used in this - and I am adding the headlight relays I removed from the wagon too (stuffed into a stock regulator can). More on that when I put it all in.

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Getting closer!