Wiring loom repairs

[Phil V]

so...
Long story short, where the loom comes from the body into the tailgate, several cables have frayed to the point of broken, now as there’d needto be a certain amount of flexibility and there’s not loads of room, what’s the best option?

My favourite at this point is to replace a longer section with solder and heat shrunk wrap.

The Q&D option is bullet connectors, but I’m not sure there’s space.

 

[Steep]

lengthen each wire and rejoin with bullet connectors? All you need to do is crimp.

 

[CaptainAverage]

You may already be aware, if the section of wire near the joint needs to be flexible you should be careful to either move the joint to a place where it will not be flexed or crimp rather than solder. A solder joint will fix all the strands together, will not flex, fatigue and snap as a result. I’d be tempted to use a crimp joints and extend the wires rather than bullets, just to further reduce the risk of the connection breaking.

 

[wave01]

Assuming this is a motor vehicle. You need good connection so maybe an auto electrical engineer is needed

 

[nilagin]

I would go for replacing a longer section of the loom and use bullet connectors at both ends of the new section. We did this on a mates Astra Cabriolet as his loom had frayed and the roof not working. Might be worth making up a couple of repair sections as you will then have a spare as back up.

 

[Phil V]

Thanks for the wisdom guys.
It looks like bullet connectors and some cable it is.

Apparently it’s a known fault I’d not known about. There’s a very serious looking rubber gaitor that completely fails to protect the wires.

 

[Phil V]

Assuming this is a motor vehicle. You need good connection so maybe an auto electrical engineer is needed

As I misspent hundreds of hours of my youth rewiring trailers, I don’t think I need to hire in help thanks.

 

[srichards]

Check there isn't a recall notice on it first. You might find it should have been done FOC ages ago

 

[Phil V]

Check there isn't a recall notice on it first. You might find it should have been done FOC ages ago

Thanks, not something I’d considered, but it’s doubtful.

 

[Nod]

Stagger the joins so there isn't a massive bulge where the repairs are - the bulge might not go through the hole in the panel! (Don't ask me how I discovered that... )
If you have a real scrappy nearby, see if you can get a couple of feet of the loom that contains the same coloured wires. Makes life a lot easier!

 

[Darkroom]

I cut all the wires going through the flexible part and put joints either side of it as the remaining wires will probably break fairly soon. Solder & heatshrink on the thinner wires and bullet connector for the rear window heater wire & wiper motor under the roof lining as there was space but soldered where wires went into tailgate. There's very little free wire to pull on in the tailgate/hatch side unless you want to strip the tailgate of everything & start moving the whole loom up.


loom_1 by Darkroom48, on Flickr


loom_2 by Darkroom48, on Flickr

 

[Phil V]

I cut all the wires going through the flexible part and put joints either side of it as the remaining wires will probably break fairly soon. Solder & heatshrink on the thinner wires and bullet connector for the rear window heater wire & wiper motor under the roof lining as there was space but soldered where wires went into tailgate. There's very little free wire to pull on in the tailgate/hatch side unless you want to strip the tailgate everything & start moving the whole loom up.

That looks sensible, can I ask what car that was?

 

[Graham W]

If you're soldering the the wires, don't forget to slide the heat shrink on first...don't ask me how I know.

 

[Phil V]

If you're soldering the the wires, don't forget to slide the heat shrink on first...don't ask me how I know.

And to slide it far out of the way

 

[Darkroom]

That looks sensible, can I ask what car that was?

It's a 04 Focus estate. Pretty common for it to go if you use the tailgate a lot.