g741.org

Hi Guys,

I keep seeing old M-style wiring for sale (on Ebay) that to me looks unserviceable and basically junk. But people keep buying it. So I'm wondering what people know that I don't. This morning I found an auction for a set of dash lights. You can see the pic below. To me the wiring is shot and there's really no way to disassemble the lights to put in new wiring. So what value is this stuff to anyone? Or am I the only one who doesn't know the secret???

thanks,
bob


M37oldwiring by w30bob

The tube-shaped connectors in the center of the Douglass shells often go for $2 each.

We’ve scrounged them off of parts trucks where the wiring otherwise appeared worthless.

… though I’m not seeing any of them in this picture.

Well, apparently it is time to go through that huge old wooden box of dead wiring . I must have at least a couple thousand of those old connectors in there; and they aren't even rusty or hard (the rubber). Most of them look new.

This stuff never ceases to amaze me.....

52 M-42

My dash lights looked about the same. I cut the big boot off the back, soldered in new wire and then put heat shrink tube over the solder joint. The big boot isn't there any longer but they are now safe to use-so if your truck was missing those it might be a case of making due with what you can get.
Ted

You can totally take them apart. The glass can be cleaned and bulbs changed. The outer cases are push and twist you can see the pins in the photo you posted. Mine looked that bad also and like above I soldered new wire in and cleaned up everything. But no boots, hey I am not going to be in water over the dash ever. As mentioned above I cut off every metal shell end and saved them from my old harness. I even drilled out some of the bullet pins and soldered them to new wire. And again as said above, don't forget to save all those little double ended tube connectors inside the shells.

They make rebuild kits for those lights, too-seen a few at some swap meets, but not recently.
Gary