21-06-2016, 10:50 PM
So a month or so ago I tried fixing the door loom issue. I've been wondering for a while how to approach it as I didn't want to buy an original part that's half the price of the whole car, so firstly I thought I'd try to just crimp on spade ends on the wires that would mate with the connector pins on the door. My original idea was to run the wires directly into the door, but it appeared to require getting the window sliders out of the way so I can push the connector into the door, so I ditched that idea.
The broken and previously taped together piece by a previous owner. The broken orange wire is the reason central locking stopped working, which drawn my attention to the loom in the first place.
![[Image: wCw0rX8.jpg]](http://i.imgur.com/wCw0rX8.jpg)
New wires on. I just bought a set of colored 0.75sqmm(I reckon?) wires, 1m each and some thicker speaker cable for the heavier wires. Those were 2.5sqmm if I'm not mistaken.
![[Image: BXAXG0C.jpg]](http://i.imgur.com/BXAXG0C.jpg)
Crimped the ends on them and the end result is
![[Image: BOGjDon.jpg]](http://i.imgur.com/BOGjDon.jpg)
...subpar.
The amount of room for the wires is too tight for this, they get fairly heavily stressed, not to mention lack of waterproofing. One of the connections (radio speaker) failed after a day or two, but I was too busy/not motivated enough to fix it again, so I just drove around with only the right speaker working. All the other wires somehow stayed attached. Nevertheless, I have finished my bachelor's studies last friday (yay) so now that I have all the time in the world I set to fix the loom once more.
I'm still not buying an OEM plug end though. What are other options though? I know! let's use the old one!
I removed the rubber selastic coating off the plug to get access to the pins, then took all the pins out one by one, cut the wires short and soldered the new ones onto them and put it all back together. Very tedious process that took me good half a day, but at least it should be more permanent than that other one.
![[Image: 7S68ROi.jpg]](http://i.imgur.com/7S68ROi.jpg)
Insta-gasket? More like insta-doorplug! Haha! ..ha... nevermind....
![[Image: oKQ1WsN.jpg]](http://i.imgur.com/oKQ1WsN.jpg)
On another note... Anybody knows if the thermostat housing on the 8V 1.8 is removable? I kinda stripped one of the two thermostat bolts... It doesn't look like it's leaking any more than it was before, but I'd like to fix it without having to get a new head or whatnot. Looks like it should just bolt off, maybe together with the distributor, but still.
The broken and previously taped together piece by a previous owner. The broken orange wire is the reason central locking stopped working, which drawn my attention to the loom in the first place.
New wires on. I just bought a set of colored 0.75sqmm(I reckon?) wires, 1m each and some thicker speaker cable for the heavier wires. Those were 2.5sqmm if I'm not mistaken.
Crimped the ends on them and the end result is
...subpar.
The amount of room for the wires is too tight for this, they get fairly heavily stressed, not to mention lack of waterproofing. One of the connections (radio speaker) failed after a day or two, but I was too busy/not motivated enough to fix it again, so I just drove around with only the right speaker working. All the other wires somehow stayed attached. Nevertheless, I have finished my bachelor's studies last friday (yay) so now that I have all the time in the world I set to fix the loom once more.
I'm still not buying an OEM plug end though. What are other options though? I know! let's use the old one!
I removed the rubber selastic coating off the plug to get access to the pins, then took all the pins out one by one, cut the wires short and soldered the new ones onto them and put it all back together. Very tedious process that took me good half a day, but at least it should be more permanent than that other one.
Insta-gasket? More like insta-doorplug! Haha! ..ha... nevermind....
On another note... Anybody knows if the thermostat housing on the 8V 1.8 is removable? I kinda stripped one of the two thermostat bolts... It doesn't look like it's leaking any more than it was before, but I'd like to fix it without having to get a new head or whatnot. Looks like it should just bolt off, maybe together with the distributor, but still.