craigslist welder smoked my main wiring harness

I found a local custom auto wiring business who has been in business for 25 years and has good reviews. I’ve worked with wiring before but on this one if I repaired it I would always have the “what if” in the back of my mind

 

Soldering in new is going to be the best and cheapest repair next to puting in a used harness from a salvage yard.

Do it one wire at a time. Heat shrink connections just like others said.

I had to do a smaller but similar job on my old Jeep's ABS system this weekend. I paid a mechanic to fix it a year ago. It was just broken wire to a wheel speed sensor on the left rear wheel. They had it all just twisted and taped. It came apart and the wire was probably hitting the inside of the wheel. I soldered and heat taped it and it's good as new now. My repair is better than the mechanics. I work with electonic stuff too so soldering is not something that I've never done. As with any thing watch some YouTube videos on how to do it practice some first, it's not rocket science.

 

If they back their work this would be a decent idea too if you don't want to do it yourself.

 

Not calling anyone out, but why solder vs weatherpack butt splices? When I worked with VW, thats all we were even allowed to do, and trust me, they were Volkswagens... we did MANY wiring repairs..haha

When I left the dealer and started doing fleet repairs on emergency vehicles, we all do the same. I don't think anyone in our shops even owns a soldering iron. With the proper crimping tool that doesn't let you release until the connector is fully crimped, I cant see how that method is worse?

 

There is actual evidence that improper soldering is worse, you through if resistance and create errors in sensitive electronics, as well as the increase in ohms leads to heat at the new junction.

 

A little reading for solder vs crimp
https://monroeengineering.com/blog/..., more reliable,is also easier than soldering.

 

When I went through the dealers training classes and got my Electrical Master Cert, the first thing we did was make a ring of wire with 2 solder joints and another with 2 crimped butt connectors. We were then told to try and rip them apart... guess which one didn't come apart

 

Crimp

 

When I built my aux panel harness, I was all ready to solder. Two master electrician friends and a master acura tech (from my old job) told me no way, and steered me to the right crimpers and that is all I have used.
https://www.hpacademy.com/technical-articles/solder-vs-crimping/

 

I don't hate quality crimp connectors if you have a good crimp tool and use the right size for the right wire. I use them too. I just said I'd stay away from them for this because I believe solder and heat shrink will be cheaper overall for someone starting from a standing jump, less bulky for the large pack of wires, and I'm not sure what wire gauges are in that harness (whether the standard crimp sizes would work well with them).

I love Volkswagens, at least the old ones. I've been an air cooled VW guy since high school. I've owned several busses and bugs, still own several. If you think any modern VW is bad electrically try a 40 year old one with house wiring spliced in here or there for flavor!

 

Agreed! The proper tools and the butt connectors themselves can be a little pricey compared to the soldering option.

Also off topic, im really starting to get the itch for building a Baja Bug hah some day

 

Let's see the bamf leaf hanger

 

The words "welder" and "Craigslist" should never be used in the same sentence.

 

Baja's are awesome! That's a variety of bug I've never personally owned.

My wife and I do have a really nice Myers manx dune buggy though. We borrowed it from a friend for a weekend trip once before we got married. When we got married we asked for monetary gifts to help with the honeymoon (which we had already put on credit card) instead of "stuff" because we were both already living on our own and between us already had most of the stuff we wanted.

We decided to use the dune buggy as our getaway vehicle after the wedding reception too. Well anyway, a couple weeks before our wedding the owner of the buggy, a good friend of ours, was talking about selling it. When we counted the monetary gifts from our wedding, low and behold we had just enough that we could be responsible and pay off the credit card for the honeymoon... Or we COULD buy a dune buggy.

We have never once regretted buying our dune buggy!!



Sorry to thread jack but, there are many soldered and heat shrink connections and many crimped connections on the dune buggy and they work great!

 

I’m no professional, but I can’t imagine that insurance would cover this. If they did it seems like they would go after the Craigslist welder to cover their costs.

 

They'll bring him up on arson charges.

 

I suggested soldering because it’s a whole bundle that needs to be repaired. Adding a little solder isn’t going to increase resistance enough to matter, no more than adding an extra inch or so of wire. We’re talking about adding such little mass of a conductor to a wire that’s already several feet long. It’s been a while since I’ve done a physics class to calculate the resistivity of metal but I can tell you that adding solder is negligible.

Sure, a crimp is stronger almost any day... wires can be twisted together in a fashion that will essentially lock them together and the solder is just a glue to hold them together. A crimp is even faster in most cases. But that’s a whole bundle of wires. Soldering is much less bulky. Let’s stagger the crimp connectors then, each crimp connector is about an inch long. There may be 10 or 15 wires there, but let’s say 10. Then that’s 10 inches of harness that you’re messing with (one connector at one place), 6 inches of wire to replace and another 10 inches of harness for the other side. You’re messing with a lot more chunk of harness.

Also, a pull test to see what wire didn’t break? A wire isn’t a structural item. In all the years I’ve been bending wrenches on aircraft, I’ve never heard anyone say to choose a crimp over solder because the soldered wires broke first when tugging on them. I typically only use a crimp connection for the end of a wire where it goes into a component. At that, if you solder a wire right ( or crimp for that matter), if you pull the wire it shouldn’t break at the connection or soldered joint since that repair should be stronger than the rest of the wire.

Either is a good fix if done right. I’m not against a crimp connection, it’s just more bulk for a whole harness and isn’t as clean. In the right application, a crimp is better. I just don’t believe this is the application for a crimp fix.

 

^ Good points! The tug test was just a way of showing how strong they hold together I suppose. Where this repair is being performed, i'd say it doesn't matter. Also, i'm not sure if Toyota does this, but, any repairs we made to harness' were done with solid yellow wire to alert the next technician that there was a wire repair made.

 

I would probably not give them a truthful reason why the wires got burnt.
It was Independence Day recently...use your imagination.