M35A2 Rear Wiring Harness on a M715

[Barrman]

Agengr has his truck at my house so we can share the work on it. He bought a brand new M35A2 rear wiring harness. We put it on today. The rear was about 18" short of reaching both tail lights and the front of the harness ended just before the brake light switch. We had to put new fully insulated wires on both of his rear light buckets to replace the exposed aluminum and just made the passenger side about 24" long to get around that problem. We also had another front wiring harness from Alosix. Once we added the solid state blinker circuit, we needed 6 30" pieces to connect it with the rear harness. Not a problem and Packard fittings don't care how many times they are used.

If you are looking to rewire your truck, the M35A2 rear harness is a very cheap way to get all the wires and fittings you need brand new. It is not a direct plug and play type set up though. You will have to add a little here and there, but you can't buy the connectors by themselves for the price of the entire harness.

Something to think about.

[k8icu]

I would think a M35A2 harness would be too long for the M715 and not to short. With the bed on a duce being 12 foot and the bed on the jeep only 6 I would have thought you'de have more than enough wire. Can you give us a reason for the shortness?

[Barrman]

We were amazed as well Joe.

The M35 series of trucks has the tail lights mounted just outboard of the frame rails and about a foot forward of the trailing edge of the bed. The trailer plug is in the middle just above the pintle hook.

The M715 has the lights way out away from the frame rails, rear of the trailing edge of the bed and the trailer plug is next to the drivers side tail light. That pushed the entire harness toward the drivers side and takes away about 2-3 feet of wire that would be going forward on a M35.

We had a choice. Cut the nice brand new tape holding the harness together to seperate out the trailer plug from the passenger side wraping or leave it nice and just make the tail light wires themselves longer. (We will probably make up a set of jumper leads to make the changing of the light at a future date possible and easy.)

So, we made the lights fit and plug in first along with the trailer plug. Then we started working forward. The M715 frame has a bend to clear the rear axle. The M35 is a straight frame. That ate up another foot or two.

The M35 rear harness ends just about under the drivers feet/seat on a M35. The M715 needs the wires to go all the way to the master cylinder area of the firewall. Instead, it ended under the drivers feet about a foot rear of the brake light switch. That extra 3-5 feet from light placement and curved frame is what kept it from going all the way.

Since we were adding the solid state blinker harness, we had to cut the wrapping of the stock front harness a little to find the wires. Having another front harness on the floor next to the truck let us know where to cut and really helped.

It is all hooked up and working except for the brake lights. I think that is the 3 lever though and we will figure it out on Wednesday.