Wagons beware - tailgate electricals

Brilliant. My tailgate stopped locking last week and then I found this post, indeed the green/silver wire was broken, in the top right flexi -boot. I couldn't see the connector mentioned in other posts though. So I just lengthened the wire slightly so I had something to work with, heat shrink and yay tailgate locks again. Thanks everyone.

 

Tools needed, 5cm of wire (to extend existing wire so repair is MUCH easier), heat shrink and a soldering iron. time 15 mins.

 

Mine is a Right Hand drive, 2003 JDM 3.0R Outback.

 

While we are talking about OCD... For those outside of the USA, here are some helpful key search terms as it took me a while to find this post.

Legacy trunk lock

Legacy hatch lock

Legacy tailgate lock

Outback trunk lock

Outback hatch lock

Outback tailgate lock

 

 

 

 

, Outback,

I am sadly now part of this group of unlucky souls. I noticed that if I would lock the car with the tailgate up it would beep 5 times to tell me a door is open, if I closed it slightly it would beep once telling me all doors would close. It now doesn't beep at all when the rear hatch is open. Pulled my wiring ends off and found that I've got one broken wire and several cracked wires. I've got to get the work done before it gets worse.

 

Third brake light wiring could be next. Le sigh.

 

I'll fill out the canadian problem website. Hopefully we can bitch enough to get this sorted out. Anyone have an email address for SOC that I can bitch to?

 

 

EDIT

 

Called SOC, they're on holidays. Left a message for them. Submitted the canadian defect form and asked them to contact me so I can send them pictures. Now the fun begins of rewiring the hatch....

 

EDIT II

 

Posted on a local subaru website for us canadian folk. Hopefully we can get some traction WRT this problem.

Edited December 27, 2013 by 13fido13

Ok. Managed to get it all fixed. Here are some pictures of what happened. There are 14 wires in the bunch. Nine had problems. Two were broken outright, another two were almost gone. Fixed it all up. Hopefully I won't have these issues in the future, but now that I messed with it I probably will.. Usually the way my luck works.

 

Strip the interior out of the car and look to the pass through on the passenger side. This is the side with all of the wiring. The other side has the washer fluid and the antenna connections. Pop enough clips off on either side to be able to give yourself a nice bunch of wiring to work with. Slide the pass through up out of your way (easier than going down due to the size of the wiring. I recommend stripping some of the electrical tape back so that you can get better access to the wiring in order to install the shrink tube.

 

Fix the wires one at a time so you don't screw anything up. But it's pretty simple to join the colours and dashes. When you're finished hooking it all back up test everything to make sure it works properly. Wrap it with electrical tape to keep your wires nicely together and hopefully prevent as much movement. I sprayed a bit of fluid film into the rubber pass through to try to help slide it down due to the fact that the wiring harness is now bigger from all the shrink tube. I'm also kind of hoping that it will keep the wire casings softer but I doubt it. Put everything back together after you have ensured that it all works. Enjoy!

 

 

http://i3.photobucket.com/albums/y72/hobbit13/4612FB4D-368C-4CF4-91CD-3D0EBE1093EA_zpsmxc1d5ca.jpg

 

http://i3.photobucket.com/albums/y72/hobbit13/7F80FF78-A787-4A9A-851B-3FFA7BAF8E41_zpsu5pmmob1.jpg

 

http://i3.photobucket.com/albums/y72/hobbit13/F78D24EC-D65F-4816-B1E1-2A00FD3DFD81_zpsuef8tfdc.jpg

 

http://i3.photobucket.com/albums/y72/hobbit13/8238B911-047B-4B5D-AED1-C2D3566B65F1_zpsyqosdbix.jpg

 

http://i3.photobucket.com/albums/y72/hobbit13/5D8A79CB-CEF9-4642-B841-AA952D8E140B_zpsr2jznwac.jpg

 

http://i3.photobucket.com/albums/y72/hobbit13/33BAD319-DF78-4B0C-AB9B-5912DF53FCCC_zpsvd3sgrty.jpg

 

 

I also fixed the airbag light problem that some of you may experience on your dash. Usually the problem is due to the passenger LED panel (near map lights). There are three resistors (marked 331) on the panel that usually break due to cold solder problems. You may want to look into it. Re solder the three resistors and your problems should go away.

 

If you have any questions, ask away.

I'll add to the fire...

I think i'm going to make a small harness between the main body and tailgate w/ connectors so if it ever happens again i just replace the wires in the little harness...

13fido13, aren't you worried about the solder joints breaking? At work we usually crimp things, because a soldered/tinned wire is more likely to break.

Just a thought, looks good though!

Anyone know the wire size off the top of their head? going to get some servo wire to re-wire the mobile part with.

Meh gauge 16 ish maybe 14.

Just chopped a piece out, measuring around 26-28 awg

I'm ordering some ultra-flex from mcmaster carr, and some industrial 'samples' from molex... we'll see how it goes

I think the combination of the ultra-flex wire, with some ridgid(ish) shrink tubing over it, plus some silicon in there to keep the rubbing to a minimum will overly fix the problem

Shit 26 awg? Lol dam I was way off!

Not too concerned about it breaking. I'd rather have solder in there to keep everything together. I'm a truck mechanic and everything gets soldered where I work.

 

Lets just put it this way. I'll be the guinea pig for this one. lol.

I was off too I guess, couldn't get a good measurement w/ the wires all bundled up. Most are 20awg, and there is one or two 16awg.

I ditched my pipe dream of pinning connectors because I didn't want to wait/pay for them, so I got some super-flex wire from work and went to town.

http://img.tapatalk.com/d/14/01/19/yhejuges.jpghttp://img.tapatalk.com/d/14/01/19/aqemutuh.jpghttp://img.tapatalk.com/d/14/01/19/epupubav.jpg

It's nice and fleet now! And we sprayed some silicon in there for good measure.

I was off too I guess, couldn't get a good measurement w/ the wires all bundled up. Most are 20awg, and there is one or two 16awg.

I ditched my pipe dream of pinning connectors because I didn't want to wait/pay for them, so I got some super-flex wire from work and went to town.

http://img.tapatalk.com/d/14/01/19/yhejuges.jpghttp://img.tapatalk.com/d/14/01/19/aqemutuh.jpghttp://img.tapatalk.com/d/14/01/19/epupubav.jpg

It's nice and fleet now! And we sprayed some silicon in there for good measure.

 

 

Nice job!

 

I'm going to re-inspect mine when it's warmer to see if anything has started to break. I wanted to make up a new piece of harness but that's not happening in these weather conditions.

So to make sure the solders don't snap we put a larger piece of ridged heat shrink on the joint areas (can't see it in the pics, it was tucked in the boot), and then when stuffing the wires back in made sure that ONLY the silicon jacket'd wires were mobile.

Here's a video of how flexy it is now

http://s1148.photobucket.com/user/Andyjo07/media/IMG_2902_zpsfbf2091a.mp4.html

 

While i'm editing like an idiot...

If you just blindly chop the whole harness (like i did... ) be warned that there are some duplicate white color/combos

I don't think it's a huge deal, i believe the two 16awg black wires are ground, so who cares if you swap them, and the other two were green w/ a silver dot, not sure what they go to... maybe we got lucky, but everything seems to work.

My radio still only gets 4 stations though... time to dig out the FSM and see if it's the other side for that....

Edited January 19, 2014 by Andyjo

If you look at the wires carefully there are duplicates of the wires, but.... They aren't exactly the same. Subaru uses two colour wires with different numbers of grey circles around the wire. Some have one and some have two.

 

So it may be a white/black - 1 grey, or may be a white/black - 2 grey.

 

Keep an eye out. That's why I cut each wire one at a time and quickly crimped them together.

Figured out my radio issue.....

Back to the soldering iron...

Yeah, just dealt with this wagon issue myself. Good info about the airbag light and resistors! I'll see if i can fix that now.

 

Also, you can get a new harness section from subaru for about 50, and then you shouldn't have to replace it for another 4 years (4 is when most seem to start breaking). Still have to take everything apart, but for the peeps who don't solder. I soldered.

 

Sent from my Incredible 2 using Tapatalk 2

Turns out i need a new coax line from the antenna amplifier.... My botched attempts at splicing it back together were not successful....

In the spirit of not buying new parts, it turns out there is enough cable on the body side to snake through to the hatch, where you can VERY CAREFULLY un-crimp the coax connector, and solder the new length in... the signal wire is TINY.. but you can do it...

It's amazing how many radio stations i get now!!

Great job on the wiring fix! I too went through that process but after a while they started to break again and the old problems started to come back.... so, as posted in my earlier thread, I order a brand new wiring harness from Subaru in Japan. Cost me $170AUD or so... took me a couple of hours to put in and everything is back to factory style now

I thought this was a recall item/tsb. Previous owner had something wiring wise done to the trunk by the dealer. I called the dealer to double check there were no open recalls/tsb's and he mentioned the two were done already with one of them being his exact problem. Edited February 13, 2014 by The Korean

I first posted my problems in this thread back in 2012 and I was told the wires were replaced when I hired the dealership to fix the problems. Well, all they did was what most are doing here with patch work repairs. Albeit, I think you guys are doing a much better job then what the dealership. I just ordered the entire "cord" bundle of all the wires from "https://www.partswebsite.com/subarugenuineparts/" and is costing me $83 including WA State Tax and shipping. I'll to the removal and install of the new cord myself and have found a couple threads over on the Subaru Outback forums with some help.

 

Just to put info in one place...the part number for the cord wiring is 81812AG03B.

 

Cheers,

Mike

Edited April 28, 2014 by mbcracken
added part number for cord.

I have a feeling I'll be doing this soon. When I open the lift gate the radio fades to static

My wagon started to loose radio reception the other day. I guess its time to take a look back there.

The antenna wiring goes through the boot on the drivers side.

 

Good luck...

 

Cheers,

Mike

Thanks, I have printed the pages from the service manual. Up around page 4380 or something.

 

I seem to recall one big wire and two small ones like one of the picture a few post back show's.

 

Is that big one the window washer hose and the small ones the leads to the antenna ?

 

I also have the picture from "opposedforces". Neither of which realy show much.

 

I also PM'd Andyjo

Edited June 6, 2014 by Max Capacity