Newbie 65' CJ 5 wiring and brake questions

New to the forum and I have a new (to me) 65 CJ5 project that I am starting on. It isn't the greatest but I want to drive it before I tear it all apart. Upon inspection I found the wiring to be a mess with several burnt and bare wires so I have decided for a new wiring harness.

Any luck with the Walcks harness? is the EZ wire that easy?

I also felt that I should go through the brakes for safety. I pulled the drums off the rear tonight.

They measure 10" exactly on the inside of the drum. Are they 10" brakes? Should I hold out and put on 11"? Any easy sources for 11's?

Thanks for the help!

 

EZ wiring is pretty easy. That's the route I went with our CJ. Everything was labeled and instructions were fairly straight forward. I found it a few dollars cheaper through e bay. Still new but cheaper than the ez wire site. I wouldn't be tempted to get one with more circuits. Unless you have A LOT of extra accessories, the lower kit is ample. As for brakes I'm sure others will chime in, but I wish I would have searched the site about 11" brakes before I rebuilt the 9" on the CJ. Search for 11" brakes and be prepared to read and take notes.

Good Luck

 

I expect the Walcks harness will be a reproduction of the Jeep factory harness. The EZ Wire harness will be for a hot rod, as if you were starting from nothing. The electrical on these vehicles is quite simple - maybe you should just fix the original harness? It can seem difficult but if you go by the diagram and take one circuit at a time, it's actually quite easy to repair the wiring.

If your brakes need a lot of new parts, you may as well spring for the 11" Bendix brakes now. The 9" brakes are way ineffective and parts for the 10" brakes are expensive and scarce. 11" brake parts are widely available and cheap. Be warned that some Jeep wheels will not fit over the finned 11" drums. Search the site with Google for lots of discussion of the 11" Bendix brake upgrade. https://www.google.com/search?q=sit...fficial&client=firefox-a&source=hp&channel=np

You can buy the 11" brake kits from R&P and other vendors. They are attractively priced since they include everything new except the backing plates. The 11" Bendix brakes were used on a lot of cars, notably Jeeps and Fords. The most plentiful source is likely mid-60s Ford F100s. They won't bolt on though - you'll need to redrill for the Jeep axle ends and enlarge the center hole IIRC. Note that you'll need drums from, say, a '72 Jeep - the Ford drums have a smaller center hole.

 

Thanks for the input! The PO did alot of wiring upgrades that I don't like and cut wires for non essential things like turn signals. I would like to return it to be able to safely drive it on the street. I took the walcks harness to be pretty much plug and play, will I need to terminate the ends on the EZ system for things like headlight sockets and such??

Thanks again for the info, I am enjoying the forum and working on the tux.

 

The ez wire kit I used came with new headlight sockets, You will have to terminate ends on other connections. The kit does include connectors and a diagram.

 

I think I will order the EZ harness with the Mini 12 circuit. Thanks for the help. THis should keep me busy for a while.