rawfeels

a few days ago my truck started smoking out of the a/c vents. i took off the cluster to see if the smoke was coming from in there. I couldnt figure it out and im crappy at wiring.

so i took it to the shop and today they told me there were a few wires that were melted together from something the PO mustve put in there. Anyway they said they could check for more burnt wires from the gauge cluster all around but suggested i get a new harness to avoid blowing up the fusible link etc. they wanted like $500 including labor to do it. im mostly poor. well...poor enough that this will have to wait a few weeks.

in the meantime i was wondering how hard/stupid it would be to just go to pick a part and take a harness from one of the trucks thats sitting out there. Id assume that would be easier, but seeing how the other harness are attached all over the place...i dont know if thats the best route.

i dont even know which harness to start from. the last engine i took out of a car, the instrument cluster and radio, etc ewre all tied into the harness under the engine bay (IIRC).

edit: its a 91 4runner 3vze

this is just me thinking out loud i guess. you guys think itd be easy to grab the entire harness from a junkyard truck or take out my harness...untape it all and replace it one wire at a time so i dont get lost on what is what?

rawfeels

double edit...

is the insturment cluster on the body harness or the engine harness?