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View Full Version : Woot just finished changing engine wire harness



Eurosport
07-26-2003, 08:19 PM
and biotch started at first turn of the key
was a little suprised for sure
took 6 hours
i got a few good scratches
almost had the car fall on me lol long story
i'm now black (need a shower baaaaad)
did break one wire that i had to improvise on i have no clue what's it for (it's white almost seethrough there's 3 of them on top of the engine, 2 going one way, and one the other, it just snapped when i was trying to pull another wire away, oh well i hope to find out what it is soon lol, hopefully not fuel line)
car runs like a champ
i'll post a few picts sometime tonight
but first i gotta take a shower and go get drunk with a friend

oh yes the changing was pretty straight forward
definitely worth saving $500 and doing it myself than getting raped by stealership

CKlasse
07-26-2003, 08:53 PM
Originally posted by Eurosport
and biotch started at first turn of the key
was a little suprised for sure
took 6 hours
i got a few good scratches
almost had the car fall on me lol long story
i'm now black (need a shower baaaaad)
did break one wire that i had to improvise on i have no clue what's it for (it's white almost seethrough there's 3 of them on top of the engine, 2 going one way, and one the other, it just snapped when i was trying to pull another wire away, oh well i hope to find out what it is soon lol, hopefully not fuel line)
car runs like a champ
i'll post a few picts sometime tonight
but first i gotta take a shower and go get drunk with a friend

oh yes the changing was pretty straight forward
definitely worth saving $500 and doing it myself than getting raped by stealership

Wow great job! Need picts and more documentations on the 'how tos'

Btw the clear looking cable might be a vacuum line for one of your sensor. Update us!

nokia8860
07-26-2003, 09:05 PM
big props for doing this yourself! now thats a club202er for ya!!!!

If you did take pics and did a write up please do post as i am sure this will help others with self destructive harnesses as well!!!

once again big props!!!

JRE320
07-26-2003, 11:40 PM
Good job!!! 2 thumbs up for your hard work. See told you can do it yourself. Just like plug and play wires. Now you've save a few hundreds from the stealership, you gotta buy club202 a round of drink.... :D ;) :cool:

Eurosport
07-27-2003, 01:06 PM
ok, hopefully this will help out someone in the future, sorry for not being too explicit and might not know all the terms but changing the wire harness just takes a little bit of patience, time, and common sense

first thing first here's pict of the new wire harness with part number etc.http://www.club202.com/features/wireharness/1.jpg

Eurosport
07-27-2003, 01:08 PM
this is pict of the actual old wire harness after i took it out, to get an idea what it looks like, it's same as new one, spread out the new one first and kind of familiarize yourself with where abouts everything goes and find the old one in your engine compartmenthttp://www.club202.com/features/wireharness/2.jpg

Eurosport
07-27-2003, 01:10 PM
another view of the old one (to tell you the truth i couldn't see any malfunction in it, and probably would still last awhile, but of course new is better)http://www.club202.com/features/wireharness/3.jpg

Eurosport
07-27-2003, 01:12 PM
a good idea is to be prepared when you take off your parts and arrange them exactly as they come off your engine, so you have no problem finding where they go when you put them back on
i used this mat as you can see, that way you won't lose any screws etc. which of course you know its a pain if you dohttp://www.club202.com/features/wireharness/4.jpg

Eurosport
07-27-2003, 01:17 PM
almost forgot, first thing first, disconnect your battery :)
then

on the left side of the engine compartment as you're in front of it, you want to remove that plastic cover by the hood hinges and that's where you find the start of the wire harness

again, looking at the new wire harness and finding it in your car it's the key to this to be successful, also unpluging one at a time, and as soon as one is unplugged, put the new one in, so you don't get confused where everything goes, you'd get stuck easily and your car will be a mess specially when you get to the cylinder order and matching with plugshttp://www.club202.com/features/wireharness/5.jpg

Eurosport
07-27-2003, 01:18 PM
you can see the wires from this pict, and get an idea about where they go and what you need to remove to access themhttp://www.club202.com/features/wireharness/6.jpg

Eurosport
07-27-2003, 01:19 PM
again things to removehttp://www.club202.com/features/wireharness/7.jpg

Eurosport
07-27-2003, 01:21 PM
as i remove stuff, cover, screws etc, i placed them on the mat, same as about where they were in the engine compartmenthttp://www.club202.com/features/wireharness/8.jpg

Eurosport
07-27-2003, 01:26 PM
so red dot was my start point
i placed the new wire harness close to me and as soon as i unplugged something, i found that plug on the new on and plugged it in asap, so working with the 2 wires side by side
from left to right

the only part of this project that you have to be careful about is just follow exactly where the wires go find the plug, then find a way to get to it

also taking picts of the previous and before with digicam helps you if you have any doubts as in what angle were the wires tied, when you finish uphttp://www.club202.com/features/wireharness/9.jpg

Eurosport
07-27-2003, 01:31 PM
one thing that i didn't remove was the black intake manifold
i didn't have the tool extension thingy at the house, it was in another car that wasn't home atm so things were a little more complicated, but with it off would have been a lot easier to access some of the lower plugs

w/out removing that, i just lifted up the car, removed the bottom big plastic cover, and worked on some of the lower plugs from underneath, crawling my arm with not much space and unplugging and plugging that way, my father helped from up top on this stuff so wires would go same spot they were in.
he was also good help with wire tieing stuff which i always hatehttp://www.club202.com/features/wireharness/10.jpg

Eurosport
07-27-2003, 01:35 PM
if you look in this picture you can see the 3 white wires i was talking about earlier, i found out they are vaccuum lines, one of them the bottom one i did break by accident, and fortunately had one in storage that i just reattached and improvised on the spot, just be careful working around them as slight bend and they might snap, or just replace them they are really cheap, pull out and push in type changehttp://www.club202.com/features/wireharness/11.jpg

Eurosport
07-27-2003, 01:41 PM
when you get to the coils and unplugging there be really careful and do it one at a time, you have to match good, look at the old wire first there's thicker and thinner, different length, ect, use common sense and find the exact plug for each one and do the wiring plug by plug. i can only imagine what it'd be like to mess up here because then you would have no point of return no other referance that's why it's important to not disconnect more than one plug at a time in this whole projecthttp://www.club202.com/features/wireharness/12.jpg

Eurosport
07-27-2003, 01:42 PM
expect to get dirty like i did,
but i doubt many of you mind it right? :D http://www.imagestation.com/picture/sraid71/p91e9bf8e9602588a51c941b48e75316f/fb8ec3b5.jpg

Eurosport
07-27-2003, 01:44 PM
i gotta cover this engine, secret new supercharger being put on shssssssssshhhhhh
http://www.imagestation.com/picture/sraid71/p8179b4eda7c5d78468d7fbae619cfcef/fb8ec3af.jpg



j/k

Eurosport
07-27-2003, 01:49 PM
after all wiring has been replaced, hook up your battery again, then see what happens :) hopefully it'll start np
if it does, then turn it off, don't let it heat up because you still have to put all the covers and make your final wire ties pretty also while you at it, might want to replace other wire ties, like unmatching colors like i had before lol went all black now
ok that's all the picts that i have,
hope it helps a little bit
i'm not the best writer, but
plug and play, use common sense, be patient, make sure you have the time, and you'll be successful and you'll have fun

thanks to you all, i was able to do it

JRE320
07-27-2003, 06:59 PM
Good write up and nice pics. It sure gonna be a big help to others down the line. Getting dirty is part of the fun when you're working on your car. :D ;) :cool: :)

Denlasoul
07-27-2003, 07:36 PM
Nice work Euro! Should've called me, I could have taken the picture for you while you worked ;) Anyway, nice write up.

CKlasse
07-27-2003, 09:36 PM
Great job... This gotta go to the archive! Do we have an archive btw?? :(

nokia8860
07-28-2003, 07:57 AM
Eurosport

You mind if I snag the pictures and put them on the 202 server so we wont loose them?

CKlasse
07-28-2003, 08:27 AM
Originally posted by nokia8860
Eurosport

You mind if I snag the pictures and put them on the 202 server so we wont loose them?

This will be well appreciated by many. Thanks in advance to Euro and Nokia!

714guy
07-28-2003, 11:07 AM
good job, man btw how much was the harness???

thanks the pictures and sharing it with us.

Eurosport
07-28-2003, 12:06 PM
Nokia,
go for it, feel free np
least i can do

pnsji
07-28-2003, 12:32 PM
Good Job man!!!!!
I will need this when I need to replace my wiring harness (knock on the wood) :)

kameraguy
10-16-2003, 10:11 AM
Dude, AWESOME work man!!! You ROCK!!! http://forums.s-series.org/images/smiles/buttrock.gif

KenzBenz
10-16-2003, 10:35 AM
wow...you are coool i wish this was up 6 months ago

LV202
01-10-2004, 12:11 AM
Funny. I saw the exact same picture of the old wiring harness, state, model and year for sale on Ebay....Maybe it was just one of those one in a million things...:rolleyes:

Sulaco
11-03-2005, 01:15 PM
What were some of the problems you were experiencing before you changed the harness?

I think mine is finally going out and I want to be sure before I sit around for 6 months collecting $600 to fix something that won't help my crazy assed problems.

I'm getting no CEL and no codes, but the car is running like complete shit. I can't turn on the HVAC at all or it will kick into limp mode. I can't sit stopped in gear or it will kick into limp mode. And EVERY time I accelerate (lightly, softly, full) it kicks, spits, sputters, bitches, moans, missfires ALOT, then eventually goes (with a very high probability that it will go into limp mode).

martattack
11-04-2005, 06:51 AM
Originally posted by Sulaco
What were some of the problems you were experiencing before you changed the harness?

I think mine is finally going out and I want to be sure before I sit around for 6 months collecting $600 to fix something that won't help my crazy assed problems.

I'm getting no CEL and no codes, but the car is running like complete shit. I can't turn on the HVAC at all or it will kick into limp mode. I can't sit stopped in gear or it will kick into limp mode. And EVERY time I accelerate (lightly, softly, full) it kicks, spits, sputters, bitches, moans, missfires ALOT, then eventually goes (with a very high probability that it will go into limp mode).

My car had a serious mis-fire, but no CEL was showing up. It turned out that one of the ignition coils wasn't firing, so essentially I was only running on 4 cylinders. Symptoms of the bad wiring harness can vary so much, because almost everything related to the engine is tied into that harness. There is one way to tell for sure if you need a new harness, and that is by inspection. If you are VERY careful and slice off the black tape around a part of the wiring harness, you will be able to see if the insulation is all cracked and disintegrated. Your sig says you have a 1994 C280 (same as mine) which is one of the affected models, so you could very well need a new one.

Sulaco
11-04-2005, 09:03 AM
Yeah, I've been a big fan of your site because we have almost the exact same car (except for cosmetic differences).

Looks like I'm going to have to ditch her until I can afford the harness.

Thanks.