Broken wires in my door harness

[digital_dad]

I have had a couple of issues with broken door wires so I thought I would post my second time at fixing this. At this point I'm starting to believe this is common being it is my second door I've had trouble with. This is for the back doors on my 2000 Deville. My codes only revealed communication errors, but I never knew what it was because with the door shut the wires would be in contact and everything seemed to work. It was when my wife had the door open and I tried opening the rear window would not go down, and as soon as she closed the door it went down. My other window, oddly enough, would only go up and down when it was open?

First you must take off the door panel by getting to the screw behind the inside door release handle. Then you can pull the door panel at the bottom towards you and the plastic panel rivets will let go. You can then release the electrical connectors to the door controls so to set the panel off to the side out of your way. You may want to remove the negative battery cable before undoing any electrical connectors.

After the door panel is removed you will need to release the plastic panel rivets holding the door harness.

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Now with a thin flat head screw driver, pry the connector out from the B pillar

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This electrical tape should not have to come off because the mesh shething goes under the rubber, thus it will slide down the wire with the rubber

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Next, you will need to pry this rubber boot off of the bulk connector. This thing is a real pain to get back on straight! Once you get it off and slide it down the wire harness. You will need to cut off the electrical tape that is under the rubber cover to expose the broken wire(s).

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At this point you will need to remove the retention clips holding the back side of the wire terminals in their place

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Once you remove the retention clips you need to push the metal obstruction pin in with a very skinny object to pull the metal terminal the rest of the way out of the bulk connector. I used one of my smallest allen wrenches.

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The terminals you need are as follows: 20-18 Gauge wires use NO. 15498-2 and the 18-14 Gauge wires use 14880-2 made by Dynamic Merchandising. These are OEM terminals, but don't even think that the Cadillac dealer is willing to sell you $4 in parts. They want you to buy a whole new door harness; Thanks! Also, Murray's and Autozone don't have them either. I went to a local mom and pop auto parts dealer and they had a really nice selection of OEM terminals on hand.

Now strip back about 1/8" of exposed wire to be smashed in the terminal and the other part of the terminal that bends will smash around the insolator of the wire so it is held in very tight. Then you will place the wire back in the exact spot it came out of and you need to replace the plastic retention clip, re-tape the wires up with electrical tape and push the rubber cover back over the bulk connector end.

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Lastly, start putting everything back together in reverse of getting the door panel off and you should be up and working again. This job should take about 1 hour and the tools you need are as follows: Long skinny flat screw driver, panel rivet puller(I use a hammer), needle nose pliers, a razor blade, and a very small allen wrench(or extremely thin substrate).

Hope this helps and I hope the links work.

Charlie

[lothos]

Nice write up. The links for pictures work great.