Melted wiring....things got waaayyy too hot need advice...

Just to clarify this is my little brothers tacoma not mine lol. Apparently he went a little overboard the other day when offroading and the bracket that holds his battery in place came loose and touched off on the positive terminal. This picture explains the aftermath. I have not gone through it and removed shrouds yet but the wires that are visible are completely melted together.
Does anyone here know of a semi easy/cheap fix to get this truck running again? Can I pull the wire harness out of a wrecked truck or are they vin specific?
Any suggestions would help. Need to get this thing back on the road because as of now he's using mine.
Thanks

 

Pictures?

 

The only picture I have is the one that is on the thread now of the wires. I will get some more tomorrow. Is the picture not showing up? I just used the add picture with URL tool in the thread build box.

 

The pic doesn't work

 

Cut and splice a junkyard harness in, or cut and splice new wire in(match gauge).

 

So do think that it could have fried the computer as well or just replace the wiring and good to go?

 

There's only one way to find out. Wire it up and cross your fingers.

 

Hopefully these pictures work.

 

You should be able to cut the loom open, separate the wires, and replace the bad sections. Just match the wire sizes and solder all the connections. Shrink tube the connections and re-loom it.
Tedious, time consuming work. Just make sure you do it one wire at a time.

 

Gunner is right bro. You can use any wire as long as its the same gauge. Just splice in new wire where the old wire is melted. Don't use automotive splices though. Go to radio shack or somewhere like that and get environmental splices! Trust me, automotive splices can't get wet or you'll short your harness out again. At radio shack they can tell you what gauge the wire is. Buy about 10 feet of it and a 100 pack of splices and you should be good to go.

 

Yup, a spool of wire is cheap...just takes some time to solder it up.

That's probably what I would do.

 

I would avoid solder splices if your not comfortable with wire repair and stick to crimp type splices with an environmental shield

 

Yea, they work well and quick, but get expensive fast.

Electric solder iron, heat sinks, and use a sheild to protect the rest of the wires. Practice before you do the real thing. Oh yea, and use liquid flux, and flux core solder.

 

Yeah, good advice here. I would just rewire and hope for the best. If anything else needs replaced at least you did some stuff that needs fixed anyway and saved some money. I would bet that is all he needs.

 

Thanks for all the advice I really appreciate it. I am not against rewiring it by any means myself but I found a used toyota parts dealer that has all kinds of wiring harnesses in stock for decent prices. This might be a long shot but does anyone know the name of the wiring harness in the picture or even where it goes or what it attaches to. This will give me a start at explaining what I need.
Thanks

 

Yuk, that does not look like fun at all. IF it fried the ABS wires all the way over on the other side of the truck, you are more than likely gonna be chasing shorts for awhile. Basically what happened is you made the chassis of the truck 12VDC, reversing the polarity and bypassing all fuses. It may have fried the ECU as well as all other sensitive electronics. Good luck friend. In my opinion, the junk yard/replacement harness will prove to be a whole lot easier then replacing individual wires.

 

How did it turn out?

 

If you don't feel comfortable soldering, don't use regular automotive crimps as they will allow moisture to get in and eventually corrode causing one big headache. There is a connector that a company called Del City that has a
Shrink Tube Terminals with Solder Sleeve I have used them in the past and all you need is wire, strippers, wire, a good crimping tool and a heat gun. Check with your auto parts store and see what they have available. Hope this helps you out.

 

As easy as crimp splices may be I would strongly avoid them because most cheap automotive crimpers don't work properly and are bulky. The inexpensive and permanent method is solder and electrical tape. It's not hard twist wires first, flux not really needed as it is in the solder. Obviously check all of your fuses as some are probably blown and note them for troubleshooting later.

 

Well after more than a month later my uncle who is an electrician and I started cutting, splicing, and soldering the melted mess back together. What had happened is the body ground next to the battery was apparently disconnected for quite some time so the truck had been using the next closest one which was the one on the ABS system. When the battery holder finally touched off on the positive it was just enough to ground too much through the ABS circuit and melted everything. After about six hours of cutting and soldering and with the help of a alldatadiy.com subscription we brought the toy back to life. Thank you for all that participated and gave good advice.