Passengers side door wiring harness corrosion

[Gotbadger]

Previously I’ve detailed trying to fix my airbag issues however the fix remains temporary and over time it comes back. I think what’s happened is the pins are missing their plaiting meaning they tarnish very easy causing issues with the connection.

I think I will need to replace part of the harness that comes from the car or try and repin the affected pins.

Has anyone any experience doing this or have any suggestions. Also for the loom replacement angle I wasn't able to work out on real oem if it’s even possible or it’s just part of the main loom.

 

[enuff_zed]

Funnily enough, I have a car near me that has the same issue. We cleaned the pins and it goes away but comes back.
Rather than mess about with the whole of that huge plug, our next plan is to identify the two wires and splice in clean lengths of wire from a few inches either side of the plug. There is sufficient room to feed it through beside the plug, with care, and it will be adequately insulated etc. Only drawback is it'll be a faff to remove the door, but that's a fairly rare occurrence.
Re-pinning is the proper answer of course, but not if you're an electrical fumble-fingers like me!

 

[Gotbadger]

For reference I found I had quite good image of the pins involved @enuff_zed

 

[Usel]

You could try cleaning up those pins with isopropanal alcohol.

Then use some silver grease in the female contact for those pins. A similar sized pin to the ones pictured above or a needle, then carefully push some silver grease into the female pin. You need to be careful as silver grease is conductive so only put it where it's needed.

The silver grease will prevent future corrosion and will help with conduction.

P.S you also need to clean the female pin. This is where a spare pin of the correct size is useful. I smother the female pins in isopropanal and then insert the male pin multiple times to clean the contacts.

 

[Z44Jon]

I took just the two wires from a spare harness, depinned the old ones and just ran the new ones along the original harness on one of ours as the spare harness I had was the wrong type.

No problems since

 

[enuff_zed]

I took just the two wires from a spare harness, depinned the old ones and just ran the new ones along the original harness on one of ours as the spare harness I had was the wrong type.

No problems since

So did you splice into the existing wires either side of the plug and use replacement pins, or just run the wire through the pin holes?

 

[Z44Jon]

I used the whole of the two wires on the door side of the plug . Swapped the pins out on the door plug end and ran the donor cables along the outside of the harness, following the same route as the original wires . Once I had proven my fix worked , I chopped the old airbag plug off and taped up the harness.

This was the red car , we discussed it at the time . It had been fitted with an emulator in the drivers door and we jointly came to the conclusion it had opened up the connections on the green plug. When I removed the emulator and fitted an airbag the light wouldn’t go off despite going off if the emulator was fitted.

The overlay harness fixed the issue, it’s been fine for months.

I never touched the vehicle side of the door harness plug.

You can just see the wires from the donor harness here. This was just before testing and tidying up once my fix was proven.

It now has sound deadening and a new membrane too.

Away at the moment but can check to see if I have any spare car side pins you can use, doubt will be the correct colours though if I do.

 

[enuff_zed]

I used the whole of the two wires on the door side of the plug . Swapped the pins out on the door plug end and ran the donor cables along the outside of the harness, following the same route as the original wires . Once I had proven my fix worked , I chopped the old airbag plug off and taped up the harness.

This was the red car , we discussed it at the time . It had been fitted with an emulator in the drivers door and we jointly came to the conclusion it had opened up the connections on the green plug. When I removed the emulator and fitted an airbag the light wouldn’t go off despite going off if the emulator was fitted.

The overlay harness fixed the issue, it’s been fine for months.

I never touched the vehicle side of the door harness plug.

You can just see the wires from the donor harness here. This was just before testing and tidying up once my fix was proven.

It now has sound deadening and a new membrane too.

Away at the moment but can check to see if I have any spare car side pins you can use, doubt will be the correct colours though if I do.

Cheers, that's a much better idea than cutting into them. I have a couple of passenger doors I can get the loom off. Hopefully then just clean up the car side pins and all will be good.