Repairing wiring harness (1 Viewer)

[hammerheadfistpunch]

Whats the consensus on patching a wiring harness? I've been semi-stranded once because of the EGR/Injector wire issue and just recently it happened again because my heat wrap wasn't as effective as I would have hoped. So I have 2 melted ledes and I think its causing my rough running issues (almost sure). So the one lede (#1) is in bad shape and It needs to be fixed so the question - is there any reason NOT to patch the wire with a similar gauge 16 GXT quality high temp wire? will it mess up the signal? will it hold? The Alternative is a new wiring harness which is ~$500 best price I can find, plus pulling the intact tract and related stuff. So repair or replace? Thoughts?

 

[Travis 76]

I would repair the existing wires. Make sure you tie the harness back. There is a holder for it by the valve cover. I just zip tied mine there and it holds it away from the egr pipe.

 

[BILT4ME]

Use the same gauge or heavier wire. It is about the amperage, not about the "signal". Make sure you solder it in with ELECTRICAL solder and follow a "lineman's splice" methodology.

Someone here recently posted a really nice video of how to do that.

Make sure you slide on some heat shrink tube and make it far enough away while you solder. Then slide it back and heat shrink it o fit. Then rap the harness all up with some heat covering on it and make sure it is held away from the EGR (or remove your EGR in the process) so you don't have a repeat.

However, make sure you check EVERY wire for damage before you wrap it back up, or you may get to do it again.

Edit: Found it!

how to do a lineman's splice - Google Search

www.google.com

 

[ZackR]

Once the repair is complete make sure the harness is secured so that it won't touch the EGR pipe. The OEM plastic clip is often gone or broken, zip ties work just fine.

 

[ppc]

The injector wires are just standard single stranded wires, not coaxial or shielded wires which could be compromised with an improper repair. Use the same type of wire for the repair, make sure there is slack in the repaired wire so it is not mechanically stressed. If there are multiple wires being repaired, stager the joints over the length of the harness, not all in the same spot. Slip heat shrink tubing on the wires before connecting together.

I don't like the technique used in the lineman splice video. There was an excessive length of wire stripped. The two wires should be mechanically secured together before soldering but not pulled into a knot as shown in the video.

 

[Comet]

I am replacing the entire wiring harness. I rebuilt everything and put the old harness back in. Apparently the insulation was stressed out cause water, heat, and pesky critters could not stay away. I have had issues galore with the old harness. I just need to get back out there and finish the job.

 

[baldilocks]

If you plan to keep your 80, imo, replace the engine harness while they are still available.

 

[sunrk]

When I join wiring with multistrand (not solid as shown in that youtube video) I twist the stripped wire ends first, then twist them around each other, then do soldering. One great adjunct to heatshrink tubing is Liquid Electrical Tape from Starbrite but there are other brands of the same thing.

The hardest wiring to join is where the copper is tarnished from age and elements. Often it is simply due to chemical action of the insulation on the copper, combined with heat (common in engine bays!). In that case really fine wet/dry sandpaper can help to remove enough tarnish so that when the mutlistrands are twisted, you get a decent enough amount of exposed 'clean' copper for the flux to do it's job of 'pre-treating' the heated metal so the solder itself gives a good bond and flow.

Also if you need to join wires of significantly different cross-sectional area, be careful how they're twisted together.

 

[dirtyboots]

As a novice shadetree at best I have found the best piece of mind replacing the entire wire from terminal to terminal. It may not be accessible and too time consuming for your application. Just a suggestion for any one else looking at harness repair.

I don’t trust my soldering / splicing abilities compared to using a $40 mechanical crimper designed for Yazaki contacts. Mechanical connections from what I found was preferred in Motorsportselectronics as well. Just follow the FSM to de pin the terminal, cut and strip the ends of the appropriate wire, crimp on the Yazaki 090ii socket contacts, insert the contacts in the terminal.

- Yazaki | 090II-SKT - Corsa Technic | 090II Sealed Series Socket Contact

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