Best way to splice wires in door?

[SteveAngry]

As type 44 usual, my drivers side door has some broken wiring. The rear windows are DOA. I can live without those. However my passenger window now is acting up whenever the drivers door is open. So now I am forced to look in to fixing all of my window problems. I pulled back the rubber boot that protects the wiring to look for broken or frayed wiring. I noticed 2 wires that are severed in half and alot of frayed ones. What's the best way to fix this? Can I just splice them together like speaker wire and then tuck the splice into the actual door? My understanding is that there is excess wiring tucked up under the kick panel that would make it long enough to do this...? Looking for suggestions/experience. Thanks. Keep in mind that I don't own a solderer(?)and I've tested and cleaned all door switches to make sure it was indeed a wire problem. Steve Ankney 88 5000 Holland, MI

[Todd W]

I had to add about 3" to every wire in my driver's door, that's over 70 solder connections. It was obvious that at least an inch of wire on each side of the breaks would not survive long. I just spliced in 3" sections with a soldering gun and heat shrink tubing. The only problem was that the wire I had was a little thicker than the original wires. By the time I had 36 splices the thing didn't bend too easily. It has held up though, for about 5 years now.

[DaveN]

otherwise it will just break at the joint. Also, on mine, I only repaired those wires that were broken or had cracks in the insulation, was about 20 wires for me. Good luck with it.

[SteveJ_in_TX]

Not so much a pain as it is tedious. First, make sure there is beer for afterward. Pull the interior door skin loose and disconnect the multigang connector and the stereo wires. Pop the accordion bellows loose at both ends and eyeball what you have. In my case on the TQW, I had three broken wires.

Pull the parcel shelf thingie under the dash, then pull the lower dash cover. Unscrew the two Phillips head screws from the the e-brake handle and pull the carpeted cover outta the way.

Here's where it gets interesting. From both inside the car and inside the door, slowly inwind the dried out fabric tape that covers the wire loom, this will take a good while as you are gonna go slowly. Gently tug on the wire that is broken and identify what color it is and what color stripe it has (if any). Find that wire and pull it out of the accordion boot into the car. By now you have peeled enough of that fabric tape that you can splice it a good two inches from the hinge in both directions - inside the door and inside the car. Use a good barrel splice (aka butt splice) that is sized to fit the wire, and be sure to use the same size _good_ quality wire. Do not put the splice inside the accordion boot as the flexing will make it fail shortly thereafter, and Murphy's law will apply - it'll happen to the driver's side window sticking down in the pouring rain!

Splice the affected wires, then reassemble.

Word to the wise: you will think that your driver's side door lock is broken until you remember that you _can't_ lock the driver's door when it's open. Trust me, I know on this one!

When completed, drink beer.

-Steve Jensen
87 5kcstq (all four windows work)
87 5kcstqw (okay, three outta four...)

[SteveAngry]

[Booch5KQ]

Stephen, I did this last summer. It took me around 4 or 5 hours from start to finsh. Probably a lot less for someone with more experience than myself. One tip though, try to have a small stool around to sit on. I found myself sitting mostly on the ground and on the side part of the car next to the seat (ya that 6 inch area next to the seat). I was in pain the next day :-).

[SteveJ_in_TX]