benjr

I recently discovered I have a melted or torn engine wiring harness after my rebuilt alternator I replaced quit charging. While I am aware of the recall wiring harness I am on the fence about replacing or repairing it. My 993 is a 1997 and unfortunately mine isn't covered under the recall, I double-checked the part #s on the harness to be sure. I have determined that the blue alternator wire and brown ground wire were damaged. The ground goes to the black box on the driver side of the engine compartment and the blue wire goes into the box on the passenger side of engine compartment. I can a brown and blue wire and splice into existing connectors or purchase the connectors separately ?? and perform a high quality repair or I can replace the harness.
I am being cautious because I don't know what caused the harness to fail.

Mechanical - It came in contact with the alternator shaft on the rear.
Electrical- short in alternator or elsewhere causing wires to burn up

If I repair it and I have another failure I have to do all of that work over. If I buy the recall harness for $100 I have to do the work again and buy another harness.

Looking for feedback if I should repair or replace. See pics below.

kjr914

Look up a thread by tj90. He did a fix on his that looked a lot like this.

Its not the mechanical failure you mention, since the alt shaft is fully enclosed. But, IF the alt is put in 90degrees off (easy to do....), your alt wire harness will lay on/near the engine top and can easily be melted by the heat.

benjr

what if the wire came in contact inside the back cover ? Is that a possibility?

Tom T.

The wire insulation in your first picture looks completely torn. $100 is very cheap insurance against a fire which will damage a whole lot more than the wire. Replace it with the new & improved harness.

Ed Hughes

Why is this a question? I'd not knowingly eff around with suspect electrical wiring near an engine pumping gasoline. It's a pain either way, but less of a pain, IMO with a $100 harness.

kjr914

No. there is a rubber grommet (bottom right of his photo) that seats into the housing and minimal wiring is inside the back cover. From the grommet, the little wiring to the right in the pic is inside the housing. What is burnt in the picutre is everything outside the housing.

AOW162435

I would replace the harness. The affected wires may have other compromised sections hidden by the sheath.



Andreas

pp000830

I agree with AOW162435 Replace as I have found in such cases hot spots along wires subjected to excessive load have compromised the insulation or reduced the ductility of the conductors in sections that did not progress to exhibit external melting. The worst thing would be to not replace and have other seemingly unresolvable issues in the future who's root cause could be traced back to a repaired harness.

Jay J

Mine did the same(It melted other wires)..I went through 3 batteries after replacing just the main wire with a 0GA) before ripping it all out to do the whole harness....

fade67

Not sure if anyone is still looking here, but i just went through the same issue. it seems that the melting of the wiring harness was caused by an insufficient ground. My mechanic felt that replacing the harness would simply delay the problem from happening again. His solution was to put a heavier gauge ground wire in. So far so good.