1984 Bronco build thread

[ArdWrknTrk]

After a considerable amount on mental Gymnastics I think I may be a little closer to figuring this out.

First off- I think the two blad plug goes to my tachometer. I dont have a corresponding plug in my donor harness. I assume this is because my donor truck didnt have a tachometer? I never saw the truck so thats only a guess.

That leaves me with two more "mystery plugs".

These are the ignition diagrams for the eec and the duraspark 2. On the duraspark 2 diagram Ive placed green check marks on what I believe is already done.

On both diagrams Ive circled a section that can be removed from the diagram by disconnecting two conectors, C321 and C325. And ofcourse, both diagrams have arrows going off into space for the tachometer but neither includes a connector callout for that connection. Could C321, C325 and the tachometer connection be my 3 mystery plugs?

Assuming that this is the case and that my donor harness is missing the tach plug because the donor truck didnt have a tach, I still have some problems.

One ofcourse is how to wire in the tachometer. The ds2 diagram shows the tachometer signal coming from two places.

The next one- Is the "two wire" connector on my new ignition box supposed to be C321? It seems like it should be, but the diagram for the ds2 shows 3 conductors coming out of the duraspark box to C321 and I only have 2..

Finally, is the gray square shaped plug with 3 wires from my donor harness C325? The diagrams only show one conductor on that plug but I already know that the other two are for the sending units and ford may not have included the sending units in the ignition system diagram. Honestly, its a little odd that those senders are lumped up with the ignition harness anyways. If that conector is C325, it doesnt look like anything in the truck. Maybe ford changed connector styles? I could rob the old male plug from the old ignition harness and splice into that so that id be able to plug it in.

It seems like other folks have ended up installong new ballast resisters and running wires to the starter solenoid for the red and white wires from the ignition module. From what I can tell, all of that very well may be present in those 3 mystery plugs. Any advice would be greatly appreciated.

Have you unwrapped your ignition harness, back towards the firewall?

Usually the DSII plugs are doubled back and wrapped over.

There is no tachometer ground with a six cylinder engine.

You only need one green/yellow wire.

Do you want me to take some pictures of the harness in my 460 truck?

[StraightSix]

Have you unwrapped your ignition harness, back towards the firewall?

Usually the DSII plugs are doubled back and wrapped over.

There is no tachometer ground with a six cylinder engine.

You only need one green/yellow wire.

Do you want me to take some pictures of the harness in my 460 truck?

Jim,

If it wouldnt be too much of a hassle, that would be awesome. Thanks!

Have you ever heard of a ds2 harness not having a tach wire? This one seems not to.

I unwrapped a good bit of it, but there may be more back there somewhere. Ill have to look when I get home. The only plugs that arent plugged in to something from the engine side are the 2 wire plug on the module and the 3 wire square plug.

Thanks for your help!

[ArdWrknTrk]

Jim,

If it wouldnt be too much of a hassle, that would be awesome. Thanks!

Have you ever heard of a ds2 harness not having a tach wire? This one seems not to.

I unwrapped a good bit of it, but there may be more back there somewhere. Ill have to look when I get home. The only plugs that arent plugged in to something from the engine side are the 2 wire plug on the module and the 3 wire square plug.

Thanks for your help!

At the very least you will see what all the plugs look like.

Obviously the six has its *coil and distributor down on the side of the engine and the sender goes around the back of the block.

I'll be done in an hour, then I'll try to catch as much detail as possible

[1986F150Six]

Have you ever heard of a ds2 harness not having a tach wire? This one seems not to.

I unwrapped a good bit of it, but there may be more back there somewhere. Ill have to look when I get home. The only plugs that arent plugged in to something from the engine side are the 2 wire plug on the module and the 3 wire square plug.

Thanks for your help!

Look for a green wire which connects to the negative post of the coil.

[ArdWrknTrk]

Have you ever heard of a ds2 harness not having a tach wire? This one seems not to.

I unwrapped a good bit of it, but there may be more back there somewhere. Ill have to look when I get home. The only plugs that arent plugged in to something from the engine side are the 2 wire plug on the module and the 3 wire square plug.

Thanks for your help!

Look for a green wire which connects to the negative post of the coil.

Okay, I grabbed a few pictures.

If you want something closer or in another direction, LMK.

First is the connector for square (EFI coils) this is unused.

So, we have the two module connectors.

Note: the red and white wires reverse at the plug! This is normal.

The connector to the distributor also has one leg of coil ground, so the module can trigger it.

We have the coil power and water+oil senders. This carries the green/yellow tach wire into the cab.

If you have a radio suppression condenser at the coil it has its own two place grey rectangle connector, but only one wire is present.

[StraightSix]

Okay, I grabbed a few pictures.

If you want something closer or in another direction, LMK.

First is the connector for square (EFI coils) this is unused.

So, we have the two module connectors.

Note: the red and white wires reverse at the plug! This is normal.

The connector to the distributor also has one leg of coil ground, so the module can trigger it.

We have the coil power and water+oil senders. This carries the green/yellow tach wire into the cab.

If you have a radio suppression condenser at the coil it has its own two place grey rectangle connector, but only one wire is present.

She runs!!! More info shortly

[StraightSix]

She runs!!! More info shortly

Jim and 1896F150Six,

Thanks for all of the help! Jim, especially thank you for going and taking pictures of your harness. Im really glad to have that documented here because there don’t seem to be any ds2 conversion writeups left on the internet that still have their photos attached. Gary mentioned that photos on this forum are very secure and wont be going anywhere any time soon.

 

What I found last night was strange to me. I spent a lot of time yesterday looking at the ignition wiring diagrams and after getting familiar with those I was able to figure out what was going on. Basically, the 3 “mystery plugs” sitting on my driver side inner fender were the plugs I needed but they didn’t match up with my donor harness very well. First and foremost, my donor harness really didn’t have a tach wire. I cut the tach wire out of my original 1984 harness, clipped the tachometer plug back in, and then spliced the wire into the green wire going from the module to the coil. I have no answer for why my donor harness didn’t have a tach wire. Next, I realized that one of my remaining two “mystery plugs” had 3 wires coming to it from the cab, but matched the shape of the 2 wire plug on my new module. I found the “engine side” of that connector in my old harness and realized that the old harness only had pins for two of the three wires in the plug. So the old harness, and the new module would only use the same two wires out of that 3 wire plug from the cab. This all seemed like quite the coincidence so I plugged it in. Finally, we are down to the last “mystery plug” from the cab and the square gray plug from my donor harness. Im now 99% sure that the gray square plug was an aftermarket plug that the owner of the donor truck installed for some reason. The last mystery plug had 4 conductors coming through the cab. I found that connectors mate in the 1984 harness and tracked it back to the oil pressure sender, water temp sender and the bat+ terminal on the coil. The 4rth conductor went to an unused clip, so I ignored it. The I retraced my square gray connector in my donor harness back and found that it went to oil pressure, water temp, and the bat+ terminal on the coil. I cut the old connector out of the 1984 harness, cut the gray connector off of my donor harness, spliced the 1984 connector into my donor harness, plugged it up, and after a little fiddling with the distributor it fired up!

 

Im confident that this is normally an upgrade that doesn’t involve this much fanfare but it really threw me off that I didn’t have as many plugs as I was supposed to and that some of those plugs didn’t match anything in the truck… Im glad it runs now though! And I have a really good understanding of the harness so that can only help down the road. For anyone who is reading my biggest recommendation is to get the actual wiring diagrams (Ill post them here) and look at them until you understand where all of your wires are supposed to go. Its not my strong suit and I needed a few cups of coffee to get it done but in the end it worked! Here is some information on the parts I used to make it all work-

 

Coil, distributor, harness out of and 82 pickup with a 300-6

Brand new motorcraft ignition module from summit – PN 1U2Z12A199AA

New plugs, but the old ones looked the same MOF-SP549

New spark plug wires – will update with PN when I get home, but I just bought the motorcraft wires for an 82 f150 with a 300-6

 

Now I need to lock down my distributor, and then I can start working on the induction system. With any luck, Ill have the air pump, intake and exhaust manifolds, carburetor, and the majority of the vacuum system off tonight. Im waiting on new studs to arrive in the mail to install my intake and exhaust manifolds, and I have a short list of nuts, bolts and hoses to find. That’s alright though, I can start welding up the exhaust in the mean time if I run out of things to do. I think Im going to try out the JB weld original 2 part epoxy for sealing up the water heat intake spacer. It claims a max working temp of over 500F, and the water should keep it well below 200f if I had to guess. As always, thanks for reading and thanks for all of the help!

 

[Gary Lewis]

Jim and 1896F150Six,

Thanks for all of the help! Jim, especially thank you for going and taking pictures of your harness. Im really glad to have that documented here because there don’t seem to be any ds2 conversion writeups left on the internet that still have their photos attached. Gary mentioned that photos on this forum are very secure and wont be going anywhere any time soon.

 

What I found last night was strange to me. I spent a lot of time yesterday looking at the ignition wiring diagrams and after getting familiar with those I was able to figure out what was going on. Basically, the 3 “mystery plugs” sitting on my driver side inner fender were the plugs I needed but they didn’t match up with my donor harness very well. First and foremost, my donor harness really didn’t have a tach wire. I cut the tach wire out of my original 1984 harness, clipped the tachometer plug back in, and then spliced the wire into the green wire going from the module to the coil. I have no answer for why my donor harness didn’t have a tach wire. Next, I realized that one of my remaining two “mystery plugs” had 3 wires coming to it from the cab, but matched the shape of the 2 wire plug on my new module. I found the “engine side” of that connector in my old harness and realized that the old harness only had pins for two of the three wires in the plug. So the old harness, and the new module would only use the same two wires out of that 3 wire plug from the cab. This all seemed like quite the coincidence so I plugged it in. Finally, we are down to the last “mystery plug” from the cab and the square gray plug from my donor harness. Im now 99% sure that the gray square plug was an aftermarket plug that the owner of the donor truck installed for some reason. The last mystery plug had 4 conductors coming through the cab. I found that connectors mate in the 1984 harness and tracked it back to the oil pressure sender, water temp sender and the bat+ terminal on the coil. The 4rth conductor went to an unused clip, so I ignored it. The I retraced my square gray connector in my donor harness back and found that it went to oil pressure, water temp, and the bat+ terminal on the coil. I cut the old connector out of the 1984 harness, cut the gray connector off of my donor harness, spliced the 1984 connector into my donor harness, plugged it up, and after a little fiddling with the distributor it fired up!

 

Im confident that this is normally an upgrade that doesn’t involve this much fanfare but it really threw me off that I didn’t have as many plugs as I was supposed to and that some of those plugs didn’t match anything in the truck… Im glad it runs now though! And I have a really good understanding of the harness so that can only help down the road. For anyone who is reading my biggest recommendation is to get the actual wiring diagrams (Ill post them here) and look at them until you understand where all of your wires are supposed to go. Its not my strong suit and I needed a few cups of coffee to get it done but in the end it worked! Here is some information on the parts I used to make it all work-

 

Coil, distributor, harness out of and 82 pickup with a 300-6

Brand new motorcraft ignition module from summit – PN 1U2Z12A199AA

New plugs, but the old ones looked the same MOF-SP549

New spark plug wires – will update with PN when I get home, but I just bought the motorcraft wires for an 82 f150 with a 300-6

 

Now I need to lock down my distributor, and then I can start working on the induction system. With any luck, Ill have the air pump, intake and exhaust manifolds, carburetor, and the majority of the vacuum system off tonight. Im waiting on new studs to arrive in the mail to install my intake and exhaust manifolds, and I have a short list of nuts, bolts and hoses to find. That’s alright though, I can start welding up the exhaust in the mean time if I run out of things to do. I think Im going to try out the JB weld original 2 part epoxy for sealing up the water heat intake spacer. It claims a max working temp of over 500F, and the water should keep it well below 200f if I had to guess. As always, thanks for reading and thanks for all of the help!

 

Congrat's!!! Glad you got it running. Keep on truckin!

[StraightSix]

Congrat's!!! Glad you got it running. Keep on truckin!

Thanks Gary! Your site, the awesome members on it, and the collection of technical resources that it offers are the only reason that the Bronco is running right now. So thank you!

Now on to the rest.

[ArdWrknTrk]

Jim and 1896F150Six,

Thanks for all of the help! Jim, especially thank you for going and taking pictures of your harness. Im really glad to have that documented here because there don’t seem to be any ds2 conversion writeups left on the internet that still have their photos attached. Gary mentioned that photos on this forum are very secure and wont be going anywhere any time soon.

 

What I found last night was strange to me. I spent a lot of time yesterday looking at the ignition wiring diagrams and after getting familiar with those I was able to figure out what was going on. Basically, the 3 “mystery plugs” sitting on my driver side inner fender were the plugs I needed but they didn’t match up with my donor harness very well. First and foremost, my donor harness really didn’t have a tach wire. I cut the tach wire out of my original 1984 harness, clipped the tachometer plug back in, and then spliced the wire into the green wire going from the module to the coil. I have no answer for why my donor harness didn’t have a tach wire. Next, I realized that one of my remaining two “mystery plugs” had 3 wires coming to it from the cab, but matched the shape of the 2 wire plug on my new module. I found the “engine side” of that connector in my old harness and realized that the old harness only had pins for two of the three wires in the plug. So the old harness, and the new module would only use the same two wires out of that 3 wire plug from the cab. This all seemed like quite the coincidence so I plugged it in. Finally, we are down to the last “mystery plug” from the cab and the square gray plug from my donor harness. Im now 99% sure that the gray square plug was an aftermarket plug that the owner of the donor truck installed for some reason. The last mystery plug had 4 conductors coming through the cab. I found that connectors mate in the 1984 harness and tracked it back to the oil pressure sender, water temp sender and the bat+ terminal on the coil. The 4rth conductor went to an unused clip, so I ignored it. The I retraced my square gray connector in my donor harness back and found that it went to oil pressure, water temp, and the bat+ terminal on the coil. I cut the old connector out of the 1984 harness, cut the gray connector off of my donor harness, spliced the 1984 connector into my donor harness, plugged it up, and after a little fiddling with the distributor it fired up!

 

Im confident that this is normally an upgrade that doesn’t involve this much fanfare but it really threw me off that I didn’t have as many plugs as I was supposed to and that some of those plugs didn’t match anything in the truck… Im glad it runs now though! And I have a really good understanding of the harness so that can only help down the road. For anyone who is reading my biggest recommendation is to get the actual wiring diagrams (Ill post them here) and look at them until you understand where all of your wires are supposed to go. Its not my strong suit and I needed a few cups of coffee to get it done but in the end it worked! Here is some information on the parts I used to make it all work-

 

Coil, distributor, harness out of and 82 pickup with a 300-6

Brand new motorcraft ignition module from summit – PN 1U2Z12A199AA

New plugs, but the old ones looked the same MOF-SP549

New spark plug wires – will update with PN when I get home, but I just bought the motorcraft wires for an 82 f150 with a 300-6

 

Now I need to lock down my distributor, and then I can start working on the induction system. With any luck, Ill have the air pump, intake and exhaust manifolds, carburetor, and the majority of the vacuum system off tonight. Im waiting on new studs to arrive in the mail to install my intake and exhaust manifolds, and I have a short list of nuts, bolts and hoses to find. That’s alright though, I can start welding up the exhaust in the mean time if I run out of things to do. I think Im going to try out the JB weld original 2 part epoxy for sealing up the water heat intake spacer. It claims a max working temp of over 500F, and the water should keep it well below 200f if I had to guess. As always, thanks for reading and thanks for all of the help!

 

I'm glad I was able to help, if only a little bit.

No daylight and pressed for time.

I can update these photos, maybe this weekend.

Or maybe Gary's harness is cleaner?

There used to be a nice color coded diagram on a page 'My '60's Falcon' or something.

He was upgrading from points instead of "downgrading" from a feedback system, so he had start full voltage and timing retard coming from (I) on the starter relay, but the verbiage is good and all the wires are in colour on a black background.