s10 wiring harness

[wintertoyz]

Would to say hello, first post here with lots of reading. Have 54 GMC swapped onto 92 s10. Has anyone used the stock s10 complete harness for wiring? If so what are gauges does one recommend? Still using the 4.3 motor

thanks in advance!

[joedoh]

I just finished a 41 on a 91 s10 chassis and used the entire S10 harness. less recently I did a 49 AD on 03 S10 and a 47 GMC on a 99 S10 and a 65 SWB on a 98 S10, all of them using the S10 harnesses. I am doing another 41 right now using the 95 S10 harness

ask these questions:

are you using the original S10 steering column?

are you using the original S10 engine and trans?

are you using the original S10 EFI?

are you using the original S10 brake pedal?

if you answered yes to all the questions, then its easy to reuse the harness with only a couple extra wires leftover, in fact "wiring day" is really more of "wiring pre-morning/hour" because you can just lay in the original harnesses and plug them in.

if you are changing the engine, or changing the column, or switching from EFI to carb, then its a waste of time to use the stock harness, you will be better served by an aftermarket harness.

[mr48chev]

Can't get any better answer than that. If you are using the pieces off the donor S-10 the harness makes sense. Make sure you have a good wiring diagram for the donor rig to go by as you will be referring to it often.

An aftermarket harness might be simpler if you are only using the engine and chassis.

I've used donor harnesses in the past and my main gripe is that you end up cutting a lot away on a lot of them and you also end up adding wire to reach tail lights and the like on a lot of them.

[wintertoyz]

Thanks guys, i am reusing all the s10 stuff. Is there gauges you recommend, and are they plug and play with stock harness?

[joedoh]

I have used the entire gauge cluster behind the glass (on the 41 and 65 which had square lenses), and on the ADs I rebuilt the original AD gauges with the stepper motors from the s10. I am also looking for a less labor intensive method, jkeating1 posted a manufacturer that says "tell us what you have and we will build it" and I am thinking of giving them a shot on the 49 I have on deck.

https://con2r.com/service-custom-instrumentation/

I think it was purported to be around $1000 bucks, but they sure are pretty

[wintertoyz]

i think what the hard part about this is, i have 54 gmc with the deluxe dash, i beleive that what its called. have all individual gauges

[joedoh]

That might be easier, relatively speaking, to put the individual steppers in the individual holes.

[wintertoyz]

and how does that work with the stock harness?

[joedoh]

you use the stock gauges, mount the individual steppers behind the GMC lenses and wire them to the original S10 circuit board.

I know you said you wanted plug and play but that company I posted is the only one I know of that will build custom gauges to plug into the factory harness. if you dont want to tackle moving the stepper motors over, you will either need to buy all new gauges and wire them in to the engine/harness or buy the custom set.

[wintertoyz]

ok i got it now! thanks

[wintertoyz]

Joedoh

Any chance you have pictures of those steppers in the trucks you did?

[joedoh]

sure, I lost them on photobucket and archived them from the old laptop but they still exist. I think skymangs has some pictures in one of his threads, his work predated mine, in case you want to go searching before I find my backup disk.

[1952ssr]

Speedway has a good selection at different prices. You could use any aftermarket gauges that are the size required for the GMC dash, make sure you purchase the electric speedo NOT the mechanical speedo gauge. Should be a simple hook up. Buy a Chilton S10 book, Haynes are ok but not as detailed, I found myself looking up S10 schematics from the innerweb too. Sure you will delete quit a few wires but one thing I can't stress enough LABEL each connector when you take it out of the S10. Each gauge is fairly simple a power wire, illumination, wire for what it does (i.e. oil pressure, volts) and a ground.