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Painless harness to Ididit steering column wiring

73azbronco

Bronco Guru
Joined
Nov 11, 2007
Messages
7,841
Thought I'd throw up a post on this topic for those going Ididit steering column route to put the info in one spot.

My issue is the ididit column came with the flat connector no the 4x4 square connector so I have to splice. I went with this plug to make it easier:

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B07JC6X41W/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_asin_title_o07_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1

If you have a painless wire harness, or even stock harness with square plug from body harness, here is how you hook them up:

Go to Wild Horses website and open the tilt steering column webpage.

Upper left side is a link to PDF document for wire harnesses.

In that document you will see a painless wiring section, and a GM/Flaming river column section.

Apparently Ididit uses flaming river/GM wiring.

So all you need to do is match the painless colors to the GM colors and Ididit column will work.

Verified through techs at Painless/Ididit, WH.

One note, you must ensure the steering column body grounds to EB body/negative side of battery. Should be no problem with an aluminum or chrome like mine, but a powder coated or painted may not ground through the mounting bracket to the body to the battery. If you don't have a ground the horn and turn signals won't work.

While you could just crimp and heat shrink, I crimped, soldered and heat shrunk then wrapped with loom covering. Sort of looks OEM.
 

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DirtDonk

Contributor
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Nov 3, 2003
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47,707
Thanks for the heads up!
Good call on the ground. Maybe a quick scrape of paint between the two surfaces (and a little electric or di-electric grease to keep corrosion at bay) will be a good practice.

And just to be clear, if you have the Bronco-specific "Direct-Fit" column, it does use a Bronco/Ford turn signal switch and wiring. But glad you mentioned the other Ididit with the GM turn signal switch.

Thanks again. Sounds like it's up and running?
Electrically speaking at least.;D

Paul
 

eric0o1

Sr. Member
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Apr 17, 2008
Messages
592
BRONCO HARNESS WITH GM COLUMN 2nd try.png
 
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jmhend

Bronco Guru
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Dec 25, 2007
Messages
2,737
Good call. I have an ididit column still in the box that I also need to look at. Thanks for the heads up
 

eric0o1

Sr. Member
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Apr 17, 2008
Messages
592
It's a drawing I did for someone here at some point. It'll be in the updated version of the bronco harness manual. I've been working on changes for a while now as time allows. I'm finishing another project up now and should be able to get back to finalizing some changes and putting the new paper work and manual into production in the next few months.
 
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OP
73azbronco

73azbronco

Bronco Guru
Joined
Nov 11, 2007
Messages
7,841
My issue with the ididit may only be because its from so long ago, they now have direct fit plugs.
 

bharper13

New Member
Joined
Oct 15, 2018
Messages
3
Quick question, wiring the painless harness to an aftermarket GM tilt steering, where does the yellow horn switch ground wire attach? The blue/yellow attaches to the black on the column.
 

eric0o1

Sr. Member
Joined
Apr 17, 2008
Messages
592
you will not need it, the horn button grounds itself through the column on a GM style switch
 

WPS 73 Bronco

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Jan 12, 2023
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Loc.
The Woodlands, Tx
Back to this thread, but now doing Ididit GM harness to stock 73 wiring. From what I‘m reading here, the yellow ford wire (horn power) is now out of the circuit, but what do we do with the Ididit Brown hazard flasher?

IMG_0261.jpeg
IMG_0262.jpeg
 

DirtDonk

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Nov 3, 2003
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47,707
Just to be sure, the Ididit column has the integrated hazard switch?
That might take a bit of figuring, and some extra wire to connect to the existing hazard circuit(s) under the dash.
I have not done this myself, so don’t know all the ins and outs.

Back to the horn though, are you going to add your own relay to the circuit?
Did that particular column come with one?
 

WPS 73 Bronco

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I have another thread started, but I guess it doesn’t matter. The WH Ididit colum has the integrated hazard switch. I wasn’t going to use it. I planned to stick with the dash hazards.

The external horn does have a relay with a button/switch on the dash to make it honk. that switch has a ground and a wire to the relay. My plan was to hook that wire to the column, replacing the ford BL-Y wire that goes to the prior horn.
 
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