2000 V70 RH door mirror problem

[scot850]

Well I found the problem! The gray wire feeding the power for the X-axis (left-right) motion was broken less then 2" from the connector on the door side. It meant a whole lot of extra work to fix it but it is now working again for now!

One concerning thing is I took the end piece of the 'sacrificial' wiring harness apart to try to figure how it dis-assembled before tackling the real item. What I found is concerning for the rest of you driving these P80's. The SAME wire in the other harness is cracked at exactly the same spot. Not broken yet but the outer plastic sheath is split! How many more are like this?

I'm going to check the 'spare' full door harness now to see if the same issue affects that too.

Cracked wire

I have learned a lot from having to tackle this, and also knowing the harness is obsolete now as well, I can give info on how to dis-assemble the harness and the easiest way to salvage a spare if you are at a junkyard.

Neil.

[sleddriver]

Nice work there Neil! I've never dived into that harness nor connector though. However, if only a bit of insulation was missing I'm puzzled why it still didn't work? I still see bright, shiny copper wire inside. Could be shorting on metal to ground?

That connector looks robust. Some I've found will no longer grip correctly. When you shove both sides together, one or more pins will retrack from the back side, breaking the connection. This happened on the ECT, radiator fan and recently cruise control harness connectors.

Stay warm....

[BEJinFbk]

Great writeup!

If this helps, typically connectors like this have several levels of lock.
It looks like the blue ring in your pics is the secondary/failsafe lock.
You'll need to release it first so that the contact pins can slide out.

The primary for most round contact pins is usually two or three tangs
as described by Sleddriver. It's generally a good idea to find the right
pin extraction tool to reach in and release them all simultaneously.

In the case of round pins, it's a handle with a round tube that slides
over the OD to depress the tangs and a spring loaded rod inside that
pushes the pin out of the back of the connector body.

Molex Pin Tool.jpg (5.75 KiB) Viewed 847 times

Molex Pin Tool Close.jpg (1.99 KiB) Viewed 847 times

I'd recommend using the right tool as a good way to prevent
depressing the tangs too far and bending or damaging them.

[scot850]

Sleddriver, you are confused as you misread what I wrote. The picture is of the 'pig-tail' connector end I cut off to experiment with. I found the same wire cracked in the same point where my car'a harness had snapped in 2. That was why it didn't work, it was broken clean in 2.

I will write up a set of note in the next couple of days.

Neil.