Liftgate Wiring Gauge Questions

steve4459

Original poster
Member
Feb 27, 2012
31
My keyless entry and rear wiper and washer have been working intermittently for a while now and today I lost them permanently it seems. I removed the liftgate to body wiring boot and all 6 wires need to be repaired. I plan on soldering a new length of wire to each broken wire, pull all the new wiring through the boot and solder the remaining connections back together and seal all connections in heat shrink tube.

My question is, does anyone know what gauge and type of wire would be best to repair this? There seems to be several different gauges of wire in the boot and I would like know if I need to replace them with the exact same gauge wire that is already installed from the factory? Any recommendations on a good brand name of wire and wire gauge would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks, Steve.
 

The_Roadie

Lifetime VIP Donor
Member
Nov 19, 2011
9,957
Portland, OR
All six?!?! :eek: That's a first. Are the conductors broken inside the insulation or was the insulation compromised?

If I recall from the shop manual (which gives wire sizes only in metric and you have to do the conversion), most power and grounds that are fused for 20-30A are the equivalent of 14 AWG, even though that's not legal for house wiring at 115VAC. Control wires are typically 18 or 22 AWG. You can always install a thicker wire like 14AWG instead of an 18, except the boot would get pretty filled up and stiff.

I recommend using 14 and 18 for your project.

As to KIND of wire, what you can find in the parts stores should be fine. For the hinge area like you are having problems with, actually SPEAKER wire may be better. The issue is flexibility, and speaker wire is usually made up of more strands of copper of a thinner diameter, adding up to a final equivalent wire of the 12 or 14 or 18 gauge that you're looking for. House wiring (THHN or PVC insulation) like you can buy by the foot at Home Depot is the least flexible, except for SOLID copper wire which you would only use for fixed installations that never move. At work, for a very special project, we've been evaluating some 10 AWG equivalent wire that's made up of about 500 strands of 48 AWG conductors, each one like a human hair. Ultra flexible, but we need it for a very subtle benefit at high frequencies like 3 GigaHertz. (For the engineers in the crowd - this is called Litz wire and we're trying to maximize the skin effect.)
 

steve4459

Original poster
Member
Feb 27, 2012
31
Thanks Roadie, I was hoping you would chime in!!!

Actually, 4 of the wires were completely broken and the last 2 were kinked so bad that I figured they would not last much longer either, so I decided to replace them all.

I ended up using 16 and 18 gauge wire from my local auto parts store. When I looked at the existing larger wires, they looked close to 16 gauge and I wasn't sure if I could get 14 gauge wires in there so I made an executive decision and went with the 16 gauge on the larger wires and 18 gauge on the smaller wires. Do you think I will run into any problems using the 16 gauge wire? I sure hope not, because I don't want to do that job again anytime soon!!! Everything seems to be working fine again now. Please tell me the 16 gauge wire will be ok???

Thanks so much for your input on this issue, I really appreciate it. I wish I had 1/10 of the knowledge you have about our vehicles, but I guess the best way to learn is to try!!! :thumbsup:
 

The_Roadie

Lifetime VIP Donor
Member
Nov 19, 2011
9,957
Portland, OR
steve4459 said:
Please tell me the 16 gauge wire will be ok???
I triple guarantee with a pinkie-swear topping that you will have zero worries forever with this repair. I was especially impressed you volunteered you were going to solder the patch wires and use heat shrink instead of butt crimp splices. :thumbsup:

Thanks for the kind words. I live off that sort of stuff. :rotfl: :tongue:

suckuplevel.jpg
 

steve4459

Original poster
Member
Feb 27, 2012
31
"triple guarantee with a pinkie-swear topping"......now that's the kind of guarantee I like to hear!!! :thumbsup:

I was just worried you were going to tell me that the 16 gauge wire was not safe and I needed to rip it all back out!!! Crisis averted!!! :wootwoot: Seriously, I will sleep better knowing you think it will all be fine. Thanks.

I actually did a lot of reading for this project and that's how I found out about soldering and heat shrinking the wires. Truth be told, this was my first time soldering any electrical wire. I watched a few videos on electrical soldering, went to the store and picked up the soldering iron and supplies, soldered a few practice wires and now I'm an expert!!!! :rotfl:

Knowing that you and people like you are on the forum gives me the confidence to tackle these jobs. And that's not sucking up, it's the truth!!! :thumbsup: Thanks again!!!
 

The_Roadie

Lifetime VIP Donor
Member
Nov 19, 2011
9,957
Portland, OR
You picked up soldering tools and experience for this one project?!? Very cool. It will be a life long talent to have. :thumbsup: :wootwoot: :thumbsup:

There is one piece of advice to share - there is a special kind of heat shrink I'd use for this sort of project next time. Two-layer - adhesive lined heat shrink. Maybe only easily found in electronics stores - it's basically heat shrink tubing with a thin layer of hot glue material inside. The hot glue layer softens first and fills in EVERY possible gap to keep moisture out to reduce the risk of a salty conductive fluid getting in and starting a problem. Very useful product.
 

steve4459

Original poster
Member
Feb 27, 2012
31
Thanks for the tip. I will check into the adhesive lined heat shrink for my next project that comes up. :thumbsup:
 

Forum Statistics

Threads
23,678
Posts
641,889
Members
19,123
Latest member
Javliriano

Members Online