NJTman

Fair warning to all you first gen Dodge owners out there to inspect every single inch of your wiring harness for wear, breaks and potential failure. Its apparent to me that 25 years of vibrations, heat, exposure...

I've been hunting down a short which caused my turn signals and brake lights to be backfed by a short to my turn signal wiring. Found part of it last night after nearly 4 hours in the dark, disconnecting everything one lead at a time. Really tedious and I'm nowhere near finished. Really amazing the damage to wiring that is fastened to the fender-well , covered with abrasion tape. and from a quick glance, looks fine. Rotted wires (green and corroded), chaffed wires, broken wires, etc..

Ugh. This wiring harness was to the headlamps, which was bypassed many years back when I installed Jim Lane's headlamp relays. I never removed the oem wiring. Its gone now, as of last night, and in the trash.

Do yourself a favor.


Be preemptive . Inspect your wiring harness before something shorts out.

m-o-p-a-r

Good sleuthing! The #1 thing I loath about older vehicles is dealing with worn out wiring.
And, what stinks is: the newer the vehicle, the cheaper the quality.
Everybody thinks that newer vehicles with their weatherpack connectors and such, are "better".
That has not been my experience. I have an 04' that the tranny has never been out of. Yet, the tranny harness is shot.

j_martin

Though our first gen wiring is not the best, it is better than what my son faced with his 1993 Mercedes. One morning the car wouldn't start. The trouble turned out to be that the wiring harness was made with biodegradable insulation, and it was degrading rapidly. $1200 for a new harness, and a few more hundred to install it.

On our harnesses probably the biggest reason for failure is people probing the wiring with insulation piercing probes, and not repairing the pin hole in the wire. Moisture, salt, etc. gets in and literally rots the conductor till it opens up.

james1

At least Daimler Benz still offers a new OEM harness -- Mother Mopar does not afford us First Gen owners the same courtesy...

NJTman

Passenger side all unwrapped, inspected rewrapped, and lights all work. Lunch, then pull the battery and rework the driver side. Have the plow harness to contend with there. Lucky weather day today. Hopefully finish by dark.

NJTman

Wife worked for MB for a couple years. Pretty much guaranteed me never owning one.

j_martin

The food coated wiring was one issue. Another was plastic parts in the timing drive. Another was the electronic heater motor.

The kid was pretty happy when he finally got somebody else to hold that machine. Probably took a $5 - 10K beating for the fun of driving it. I have to admit, it was a nice car when it ran.