Drivers door wire connector

[Kidd7]

On the new to me Ex I've been working on the drivers side door lock buttons would not work. After some research here I found that those are wired separately from the pass side and there have been issues with these wires breaking in the door jam. I opened that connector and pulled back the rubber sleeve and sure enough those 2 wires were completely broken and bout 4 more wires had the sheathing cracked with corrosion on the wires. There was also evidence of moisture being in that sleeve. The wires were so badly corroded that even cutting back an inch or more that wire would not take solder. For all 6 or so wires I found damaged or broken I cut back a few inches on each side and soldered in a new jumper. Attached is a pic of what I found when pulling back the sleeve.
For what its worth, I removed the door to have more room to work, it was a pain to reinstall, but I think worth it for having so many wires to repair.

 

[J_C]

I've wondered if there was some other, better way they could've designed that, maybe some sort of clockspring like in a steering wheel, that rotates when door opens and shuts, but it would have to be quite large considering # of wires, or at least if it's still going to be flexed wires, to use very high strand count, silicone insulated wire which tends to hold up better when flexed.

I bought a length of such wire in case I come upon this issue again and need an extension. It's commonly sold in few feet lengths for R/C toy battery connections, on Amazon and ebay among other places. I just settled for a single color, not going to buy 20 different pieces of wire to have all different colors, and there may not even be that many color choices available.

Sometimes you can get a better solder joint on corroded wire by first using a very active (acidic) flux like plumber's flux to thinly tin the wires, but any excess flux remaining should be cleaned off so it doesn't continue to eat away at the wire. I mean the petroleum jelly based flux type, not the newer water soluble type which is garbage, or easier still is the petroleum type with the solder balls in it... just to clean and tin the wire, then use regular solder to complete the joint. Oatey 1.7 oz. Lead-Free Solder Tinning Flux Paste-303742 - The Home Depot On the other hand if the wire is that bad, it may be brittle and best to put in a new segment of wire anyway.

 

[Kidd7]

I had some yellow, black & red wire laying around so used that to replace sections. I did not have any acid flux, but did use some flux I have for sweating pipe and that still didn't really help. Using a small brass wire brush cleaned some corrosion off the wires. I tinned the new jumper, tinned the old wire as best I could, then twisted them together and melted the solder to create at least an electrically conductive connection. I think the twisting together it providing the strength more than soldered together. Placed heat shrink over the solder joint, seems to be fairly solid and everything works, electrically.
I also added a bead of RTV around the connector before zip tying the sleeve back on to hopefully prevent more moisture from getting in there.

 

[donalds]

I went to the junkyard and pulled a engine harness
all the colors are there and all the different gauges you will need to
This was part of my supercharger install