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Wiring harness ECU connector repair questions.

EfiniX

Well-known member
Joined
Oct 18, 2012
Messages
647
Location
portland, or
Lucas over at English Racing called a little while ago and let me know that the DSMLink installation in my 92' hit a few bumps in the form of flat pins on the ECU connector for the wiring harness. Now he's bent the suspect pins up and he's moving forward, but if he runs into more pins like this I know I'm on notice for repair/replacement. He's got a guy that fixes this sort of thing, but he's not sure if he's available for this work.

And then there is replacement. I see that used harnesses run from $100-$150. I have no idea what OEM costs, but my rule of thumb is usually 3x or more then aftermarket.

I'm no great electrical engineer, but I can read a circuit diagram and I'm great with a soldering iron (having built more then a few digital clocks and even repairing a set of headphones just last night on my dining room table). My guess is that this harness connector contains no magic and the pins are simply the solder and push/snap you would find in any other harness.

Has anyone here repaired or replaced the pins in the ECU connector on the wiring harness? Thoughts, tips or ideas would be greatly appreciated. I'm not looking for an answer so much as a discussion on this. I'm trying to keep my costs down and get a car that runs for a good long time. The value of good parts are not lost on me, but I love doing the work myself if I can. And at the end of the day, it's just DC current and that's pretty straight forward. Hell, I'll solder the pins directly to the ECU if I was certain I would never need to pull it out again!

Thanks in advance.

C
 
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DynastyLCD

Well-known member
Joined
May 12, 2006
Messages
761
Location
Harwinton, CT
well, i think the idea of soldering the pins to the ECU is a bad one,considering that the ECU could fail.

it is just regular pins, pull up the plastic and pull it out.

perhaps, considering your knowledge of wiring, you could get another engine wiring harness, and fix/restore it? then swap the two, and re-do the current one? most of the repairs that need to be done to these harnesses are typically fixing hacked SAFC installations, or replacing the coolant neck plug. to be honest with you, i started looking into something similar for my 1g, as i'd like to have a really good condition wiring harness in there, and i was thinking about doing an all-out wire tuck. you would have that option as well, with the harness out of the car and the pins in front of you, it wouldn't be too hard to eliminate everything you wouldn't need.

and i'd really love to see someone do an all-out tuck like this: scroll 3/4s of the way down
 

misterfixit

Well-known member
Joined
Aug 4, 2004
Messages
1,596
Location
Midlands, UK
You could use practically any common era mitsubishi ECU loom to repair. Look in the shop manual it will show you how to depin, and repin the connectors. The join in the loom treat normally (twist, solder-away from the twist so it's still flexible, heatshrink) and you'll be good to go.

If you need to replace the female side on the ecu, any hyundai or mitsubishi ecu of that era will do, cheaper the better, then spend an afternoon with a solder sucker and demount it from the board.

Rich.
 

EfiniX

Well-known member
Joined
Oct 18, 2012
Messages
647
Location
portland, or
That's some fluxing good advice!

As it turns out, English Racing put about 4 hours into re-pinning the harness for me. Too bad the car wasn't in my garage, or I would have done it myself.
 

EHmotorsports

Well-known member
Joined
Sep 25, 2012
Messages
1,278
Location
Beaverton
If you can find the pins to each component then it would be possible to diy. but i would recommend picking up something like this click.
click
it will ensure every crimp has the exact pressure needed and consistent.

If you are soldering in new connections and have several in the loom to do. I would also suggest to make sure the joints are at least 2-3" from each other so you don't get a snake eating a pig effect when taping the loom back together.
 
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