Current work 'Project'

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Hey
Just thought I'd post up a a few pics of my current job that I'm doing at work in case anybody is interested lol.

I'm replacing a main wiring harness on a BMW E91 3 series touring, this basically covers every wire on the car except those on the engine which are on a seperate little loom, so is basically a full car strip leaving only the engine and running gear on and the door trims, then taking the loom out which is a mass of spaghetti working out what connectors on the new loom arent required as they come with full possible spec and trying to work out where it all came from days earlier and what was plugged where lol



The old loom

This is the 2 looms next to each other

 

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That's never going back in .... is it???

 

corr look at all them tubes n wires. looks like a kinda old engine!? Not that I know anything about cars other than how to use the stereo mind you.

 

Its a 2007 320d so quite new.

The plan is for it all to go back in and all be right first time lol

 

Thats a huge lump for a 2 litre diesel?

Something kinda neat about seeing all the wiring layed out like that innit? I used to make bits of kit for the military, including the towed array system that hangs out the back of the (now defunked) nuclear sub fleet.

That was one hell of a harnes -
Good luck though - in my experience only one of your two prayers will be answered. Usually the first one - it all goes back in, just not working first time!

SK

 

The old/original harnesses look fine to me

What was wrong with the old ones?

 

good point please enlighten us Markyboyt

-Mallet

 

It's actually possibly the weirdest fault I've seen, car came in for a Turps smell from the air con and the customer was getting head aches after about 45 mins of driving. Found that there seemed to be diesel leaking from an earth fan connector (a collection of earth wires attached to a plate and bolted to the chassis) underneath the bonnet but nowhere near any fuel, found that it seemed to be coming out of the earth wire for the small in line fuel heater under the car. Checked the fuel heater and found the plug full of diesel, traced the rest of the wireson the schematic and found that the engine ecu plug was full of diesel and worse was that the fuse box behind the glovebox was soaked in diesel soaking the control unit, the wiring loom and the carpet hence the smell and headaches.
Because the diesel on the loom would cause premature degradation of the plastic insulation the wires needed to be replaced which n this case was the main loom.

The fuel was actually travelling within the wires from the fuel heater as opposed any ducting which I found very odd as the Insulation is so tight around the copper core.
Lucky the car is under warranty though as there's about £3.5k of parts on the job plus a lot of labour time

 

owner is very lucky to get that under the warranty. Like they say in the 80s PSA, and now we know.

looks very very time consuming. how long did it take to take it all out and put it back if you got that far? good job talking it apart


-Mallet

 

It's when you finish putting it all back together and find a bit left over that you start to worry !

Good luck m8. I gave up the "mechanics" side of things years ago - no aptitude for it.

I just love drivin' 'em !

 

about 12-13 hours stripping it, about 4 hours yesterday lifting the loom out and sorting through it and then about 2 putting in and starting to route it round the car and thats where i'm up to.

 

Yeah thats the worry lol, especially with with that many connectors to plug on, its so easy to bury one and and not notice its missing. Have done one on an E39 5 series touring about 2 years ago, that actually all went ok and hasnt been back since, hope this ones the same.

Something like this is one of the few jobs I enjoy doing if left alone to do it and not set unrealistic deadlines, which is the case thus far so alls good.
But I do still want to get out of the game and into IT

 

Since I had my Carlton 3000 GSi, then the Senator and now the good ol' E38 - look under bonnet and just think "garage" !

 

If it was me the mechanic at Vauxhall would of told me to drive with the windows open lol

 

Nope, faults are very common.. but covered up quickly, so no neagative feedabck gets out. Which is good.

I drove BMWs for eleven years or so and was fleet manager looking after several others. Solid, they are not.

Go Honda