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Purchased wiring harnesses

It's in the shop. Having them install the final harness that goes from the power distribution baox to the fan control harness. Hopefully this will get the cooling fan working. They will also be replacing the O2 sensor. I had purchased an O2 sensor but they said it was the wrong one. I'll have to search for the reciept for that. Unless it's not returnable. So, praying this will be the fixall for now. Been putting alot of money into the past couple of weeks. :cry:

Update: All the harnesses are in. Car seems to be running fine, except for the o/d light flashing. (other thread)
 
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Yes, I started a revolution! Muwahahahahaha!:laugh:

Well if you need help you know where to find it. Welcome.
 
KerryKool said:
Yes, I started a revolution! Muwahahahahaha!:laugh:

Well if you need help you know where to find it. Welcome.
Click to expand...

Yes you did. And you were right about the fuel injector harness. That was pretty easy. At first I was apprehensive about changing out the harnesses. But once I got started, it wasn't so bad. Did take all day though. Had the dealership install the last one from the power distribution box. After getting the positive battery cable installed. I didn't want to mess with the power distribution box again. Thanks for the inspiration.
 
I may not have my car much longer due to tranny problems. See
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O/D light blinking... again... Worked to get the wiring repaired, feel great that I was able to do the job, then this... :crazy: The wife wants to trade it in for a new one. May just have to do that.
 
These damn cars...

These damn cars...

I have to say, there is something about these cars that just makes me want to work on it. Take this Merc for example. My parents bought this thing new. It always drove great, but did have a crumbly harness. They never got it done though (obviously). I inherited this thing and it threw a timing belt. Lucky for me this is a non-interference engine. I have spent the better part of a year rebuilding this motor from the ground up for a learning project. Learn I have. I have learned never to work on a car that is not worth it. I need to drive this thing for like a million miles before all that work pays off.

The funny thing is, the car is having the same problems it was before I rebuilt the motor. lol That was a lot of work down the drain. That and the motor looked really good when I took it all apart. 120K and the original croshatching was still on the bores.

I hope this wiring harness fixes a few of the problems. We'll see.
 
Cont...

Cont...

I got the harness in and there is less to it than I though. It looks like my model/year has the fewest replacement harnessess, which would explain the price of ~$150. There are really only three things in this box and that is correct for a 1995 2.0L Manual.
1) Injector Harness
2) Engine bay, front harness (that connects to the fan and a bunch of other stuff at the front of the engine bay)
3) Power distribution, with the positive battery terminal connector.

If I had any time this week, I'd have it in already, but I since I am working 13 hour days, it'll have to wait till the weekend..
 
Yep, thats all that came in mine. ABS was optional on 1995 Contours and there is a harness that includes the ABS harness, but thats a different harness.

I'm still trying to write the How-to for the install, but I might get my exhaust on tommorrow.:D
 
Hmmm.. I had four harnesses. Fan control, injector, positive cable, and one coming from the power distirbution box connecting to the fan control harness. Intersting thing about it was the connections between the last harness and the fan control were different. But the kit included a connection between the two. Didn't see it until after I ordered another from the dealer. Was able to cancel the order, though. I did start taking pics, but the more I got into the install the less pics I took. Just wanted to get it done.
 
He has four too, he just included the power harness and the relay harness together. When I was installing, I started to the Fuel injection harness in and almost forgot about taking pics. By the time I got to my relay harness, I was fed up with it, but I still managed to take some more pics.
 
Warning... Venting ensues..

there is only one wire that looks like it will need to be spliced.

I have been working on this for the better part of this weekend and I am really frustrated. The injector harness was the easiest one by far (after I bought the right male star socket to take off the throttle body).

The fan/AC harness was not too bad either.

But the other two are a royal pain in the ass!!!! The positive battery terminal harness would have been easier if I was not a total idiot. I started to take out everything from the bottome of the aux fuse box before I looked at the harness and realized that I didnt need to do that. It probably would have been better if I had anyway because the last harness (the fan power distro overlay) is balls. First of all, the instructions in the recall are terrible. It will tell you to take something off/out but not give any idea how. For some of these things a simple hint would be much appreciated. I dont even know how long it took me to get out that grey/black wire from the white connector! That took forever. Now I look at the last harness and I am screaming because there are like three more of those.

How can I get out the "relay spacers"? I dont want to break them but they are not budging. Once I get them out, how do I get the individual wires out? They dont seem to have the little tabs on them like the other wires do. Most of these terminators positively lock into the connector once you push them in, but the ones for the fan power harness dont seem to have any little tabs or locking mechanism. That being said, I cannot get the old ones out!! Argh.

Maybe if I sleep on it, it will come to me. For now, I am pissed.

Venting over...
 
I had the exact same problem. I took about three breaks before I finally got the dam wires out of the socket. You have to muilt task that part, pinching the top piece w/ a needle nose pliers and pulling the wire from the bottom. Like I said, that is the hardest one to replace.

The power harness is pretty easy once you got inside the fuse box.

Your almost done, keep to it. I'd say sleep on it and give your fingers a break (and your back if you were bent over the entire time like I was.)
 
I happen to have some very skinny flat screwdrivers, similar to jewler's screwdrivers. I would slide one of those in on the side of the wire socket that had the clip on it. I would work it in between the wire and the plastic of the fuse block from the top, until I could pull the wire out from the bottom. It was a PITA, but once you've figured out how to remove your first one, the rest go relatively easy.

I also found that sitting on a stool next to the relay box was MUCH better on the back than bending over it!
 
Thanks for the tip. Yes, my back hurts. I have a kit of small jewelers screwdrivers too, great idea!! Ok, I'm gonna go try that now. I haven't been able to work on it since this weekend. I have some energy again.
 
This post will be really confusing if you are not wrestling with this wiring harness issue.

So I found that the relays are not nearly as hard to fix as I though they were. Each relay is a unit. Each relay unit has two tabs that hold it in the box. You release the relay unit by pushing those tabs toward the center of the relay and then pushing the whole thing out the bottom of the box. I found that it was pretty easy once I figured out how the mechanism worked.

use two thin flat-bladed screwdrivers. Slide them in between the tabs and the black plastic that surrounds the relay unit (ford calls the "relay unit" a relay spacer). Cantilever the screwdrivers so they are pushing the tabs toward the center of the relay spacer, then push the relay spacer towards the bottom of the box. I found that I had to access these tabs from the bottom of the box, so my screwdrivers were pushed into the relay spacers from the bottom and surrounded by all the wiring. Then all I had to do was use one hand to push the screwdrivers apart (thereby pushing the tabs towards the center of the relay spacer) then use my other hand to push on the colored side of the relay spacer towards the bottom of the box.

Then a beautiful thing happens. The whole realy spacer unit slides out. You can remove the top, colored part of the relay spacer. Once you remove the top colored part, it is easy (yes, really easy) to remove the individual wires from the realy spacers. There is a plastic tab that you can slide out of the way with one screwdriver and just pull the wire right out.

After I figured out how to do this, it went much faster.. I'm still not done because I am not totally sure what to do with the Purple/Black wire but I'll figure that out soon.

Hope that saves someone a lot of pain.
 
95merc-mystique said:
I'm still not done because I am not totally sure what to do with the Purple/Black wire but I'll figure that out soon.
Click to expand...
IIRC, the purple/black wire gets inserted into an empty connector opening in the bottom of one of the relays. If you look closely at the fan harness, the connector on the far passenger side of the harness is missing the purple/black wire that is there on the original harness. It supplies power. To what, I'm not sure. Just read through the instructions carefully, and it will tell you which relay the purple/black wire needs to go to.
 
purple/black

purple/black

The old relay has a purple/black wire running to it.

The new harness has a different color wire (green/something I think) that doesn't match any of the old wires, plus it has a few inches of purple black dangling out of the same crimp terminal.

Pull the old purple/black out of the relay. Cut off the old crimp terminal. Splice it to the back end of the purple/black on the new harness. Now plug in the terminal from the new harness that now has a green/something and a purple/black into the relay where you took the old purple/black out.
 
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