Driver’s door wiring harness

[Fredw56]

As with so many others the wires in my driver’s door have started to break up. Three are broken and the rest are all cracked with copper showing. The central locking has stopped working. The car has 103,000 miles up now so it not a surprise. It should be, but it isn’t. 
I have read the previous threads on this subject and I tend to think a new door harness is the best option. There isn’t working space to splice the cables in the wiring boot. Crimps are too big and I just won’t be able to work in there with a soldering iron. 
Has anyone else managed to buy a door harness. If so do you have the part number and can you recall the price?

 

thanks

 

[nige8021]

Remove the harness from the door and repair it ? 

[Fredw56]

nige, that was an option I considered and may end up having to do. I do fear that the cables may break close to the multi plug though. The insulation sheathing is brittle. It has cracked on all of the visible wires. On some it is clear that the copper is also breaking. Three wires are completely broken already. Continuing with any of the wires in that door gap is an open invitation to future failure.

I have seen the repair kits listed on eBay. You get a fistful of wires about 250mm long and in random colours. Included is a new multi plug  You splice each wire onto the harness, hopefully in the right slot in the plug. Not sure I want to risk it, there seems to be a large scope for it continuing to give trouble. Consider all the splice joints in the door void.

 

A while ago I fixed some broken wires in the tailgate gap. The others in there  will fail soon enough.

 

 

[Breezy_Pete]

PM me if you'd like to consider a repair by post. I'd replace the original wiring in the 'flex zone' with extra-flexible ones of appropriate gauge, solder joined and sleeved beyond, in the door area.

In terms of part number, there are usually enough variants to make scrutiny of the part number label on your existing loom preferable.

[Fredw56]

Pete.

 

Thanks. Since posting I have ordered on of the repair kits and plan to strip out the harness and attempt a repair. If I run the cables with a bit more slack in the door hinge it may work. Only time will tell.

 

 

[Fredw56]

Update. I dismantled enough to work on the door harness. The repair kit was a waste of money. It is just too difficult perform a fix using that. It would require far more disassembly that I was not prepared to do. In the end I joined some broken cables with solder joints and spliced others with sections of new pieces with the harness pulled sufficiently clear into the gap between the door and body. Shrink wrap over each joint. It is working again. More cables will break though. This is the only car I have ever had that exhibits this problem.
the only thing that still does not work are the rear window winders. They work from the driver door but not the rear doors. The car has been like that for years. It isn’t a broken wire so I think it may be the switch in the centre of the driver door cluster. As I very rarely have a back seat passenger, I don’t care too much about that.