What's new
CK5
Register an account today to become a member! Once signed in, you'll be able to participate on this site by adding your own topics and posts, as well as connect with other members.

'86 Jimmy 4in Lift, 40’s, tons, 8.1 Swap- 700r4 said PNNNNN

This is not a dedicated trail rig, but does trailer to the destination usually. I am currently in the planning phase of doing a 52/56" spring swap, and getting back to being more road worthy.
Overview Gallery Discussion
nvrenuf said:
I feel your pain man, I'm going through a similar deal with a different harness builder. I ordered / paid for a very simplified dash harness from a guy and he immediately went stone quiet and wasn't answering messages. He promised 2 week shipping, at 4 weeks and a nasty-gram he finally answered and shipped it. Once I got it nothing going through the headlight switch worked so I had to ship it back to him Wednesday, he's promised one day to fix and turn it around back to me so I'm hoping I'll have it by the end of next week. We'll see....
Click to expand...
Dang, that sucks.
 
ZooMad75 said:
It took 2-3 weeks from order to delivery of mine. It's not an off the shelf item.

No flipping way would I consider reworking an oem harness. I don't have the time or the patience to go through that and I have access to all the gm schematics I would need to do it. Not to mention any original harness is used, 15 years old and completely probable to have connectors break when messing with them. Then there's having all the weather pack specific special tools needed to release terminals and recrimp.

Getting a new harness saves all that grief. When installed correctly there's no guesswork. Howell uses the same wire colors on the circuits to match the factory schematic. If anything proved it for me is the fact that my truck started up on the first hit of the key. No trouble codes. Everything works like it should.

It's worth the wait.
Click to expand...
It's all great until you get a bad one.
I was putting a Caterpillar engine in my freightliner and the harness looked old so I sprung for a new harness.
We put it all together tried to start, no dice.
Changed cam position sensor, no dice.
Changed crank position sensor. Still nothing.
So we started test every pin of the 70 pin harness, turned out 2 wires were swapped, one of which is the injector power.
Went back to the old harness and it fired right up. Still running great 7 years later.
 
imiceman44 said:
It's all great until you get a bad one.
I was putting a Caterpillar engine in my freightliner and the harness looked old so I sprung for a new harness.
We put it all together tried to start, no dice.
Changed cam position sensor, no dice.
Changed crank position sensor. Still nothing.
So we started test every pin of the 70 pin harness, turned out 2 wires were swapped, one of which is the injector power.
Went back to the old harness and it fired right up. Still running great 7 years later.
Click to expand...
Agreed. Stuff happens. But, Larry's 8.1 in his K10 is going over 10 years without any issues including never popping a fuse. His burb is flawless as well. Both Howell harness setups. My 5.3 was running a Howell harness for 5 years after it went 1 year in Larry's truck with the 8.1 when he first put it in. Never had an issue with the harness. CaptRon is running a Howell harness with his L29. He did have an electrical issue, but the diag found it was the injector harness under the upper plenum that was cooked, not the Howell harness. We've got another local squarebody guy here in Pueblo that is finishing up an L29 swap in his burb that also used a Howell harness. He isn't mechanically savvy enough to complete the swap himself, so he's had help from both me and Larry and a couple of other locals. His is running well too but does need some dialing in with his mechanical speedo and Dakota digital electric speedo adapter. Those are a handful of examples from my circle of buddies.

No one harness builder is perfect. There's a couple of examples of issues with Howell harness' from guys on here. However, it's worth noting one shouldn't assume that any of them are truly "plug and play". Larry has proven to me with mine that pulling the new harness out and opening it up is critical to the success of the project. Had he not opened mine up we might have run into some issues with the extra circuits they have added to the harness since Larry did his Suburban. They were marked but it was still unclear as to why we would have them and were not sure if we needed them or not. A quick call to Howell and Larry was able to get a clearer understanding of the circuits in question and that they were merely "pass-through" circuits for oil pressure and coolant temp values. They were both lacking connectors on either end but something they added in so that the installer could wire in the gauge circuits through the Howell harness. The other end would be tied into your cluster wiring and allow for a cleaner install. In my case, we already had the gauge circuits in place under the hood so that the extra stuff Howell put in wasn't needed. This allowed Larry to pull the extra stuff out of the harness we didn't need so he could make the engine harness as simple as we could. It was an extra day of work, but something that pays off well down the road. Plus having it open will allow the installer to set the locations of where everything is going to be located and set the routing in place. Then re-loom and install.
 
I have only had one experience with Howell. Talked to Troy about a data-log, sent it to him, he called me about it and even called me after a couple of months to see what I did since he never heard anything more from me.

Sorry to see your trouble. Hopefully when this gets ironed out, you will be good.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

Latest Posts

Top Bottom