348 door rewiring

[Nosevi]

Hi all. Got my car back from her service and both windows (yes both) were intermittent, worked or didn’t depending on how far open the door was. Both had worked perfectly on departure. Looked inside the wiring bellows in the door shuts to see a few wires either loose or out of the connectors entirely. Windows both then stopped working. Putting it down to coincidence but it’s a heck of a coincidence both going at the same time.

Anyway, I’m frankly hopeless at electrics so a mate who’s a motorbike mechanic (amongst other things) has said he’ll rewire the sockets. I have a Workshop Manual (pdf) which I’m guessing is for a LHD car. Has anyone rewired the plugs themselves and did they use the manual to determine which wire goes where or is there a RHD crib sheet somewhere?

Many thanks.

[A348W]

Hey Pete,

That is odd.

There are some good threads on Fchat about this with lots of pics etc. I looked into it once as its a common problem and the windows were the usual slow! I dont think you need a manual, you just need to make a sketch of what colour wire goes to which pin in the socket.

Basically there are three approaches from memory:
1) get new wiring harnesses and fit them. But just checking farrariparts and superformance they are currently unavailable.
2) you can get new individual wire connectors (pins etc) and re do the sockets, problem with this is that there might not be enough wire to cut the old connectors off, and get back to clean wire, as the ends will be most likley corroded to a certain extent, and hence option 3
3) you can cut the exisitig sockets off, cut the wires back to clean wire, add on new wire to get back to the connectors and re do the connector.

Dont forget that if the door side is gone, then likley that the other end in the frame will have some issues as well, believe you can get to it from the wheel arch but cant recal.

Good luck and lets see a Jeff esk post thread with lots of pictures!

[Nosevi]

Cheers Adrian. Few pics later (early tee to make ) but I think we'll just be looking at rewiring the socket, mine's not in too bad shape, albeit with a few loose or disconnected wires on each side.

I've looked at some threads of FChat and all I've seen refer to LHD cars, just wasn't sure if the wiring colours and pins used are the same with RHD. Also not sure if the manual is correct for RHD and whether later cars were wired differently with different pins used. Guess I'll find out.......

[Nosevi]

That is odd.

There are some good threads on Fchat about this with lots of pics etc. I looked into it once as its a common problem and the windows were the usual slow! I dont think you need a manual, you just need to make a sketch of what colour wire goes to which pin in the socket.

Basically there are three approaches from memory:
1) get new wiring harnesses and fit them. But just checking farrariparts and superformance they are currently unavailable.
2) you can get new individual wire connectors (pins etc) and re do the sockets, problem with this is that there might not be enough wire to cut the old connectors off, and get back to clean wire, as the ends will be most likley corroded to a certain extent, and hence option 3
3) you can cut the exisitig sockets off, cut the wires back to clean wire, add on new wire to get back to the connectors and re do the connector.

Dont forget that if the door side is gone, then likley that the other end in the frame will have some issues as well, believe you can get to it from the wheel arch but cant recal.

Good luck and lets see a Jeff esk post thread with lots of pictures!

I think looking at the sockets I'll be looking at just option 2 as the inside of the socket really isn't that bad. I've seen threads on FChat showing this sort of situation:





But my sockets look nothing like that. I could harp on about dehumidified garages etc but I won't







So I've ordered a bunch of these, link found on Jeff's thread so cheers






And one of these, again from Jeff's thread:







Sent my mate the Workshop manual which is obviously in black and white with decodes and he sent back this, remains to be seen if it tallies with a RHD UK car:







And I think we're probably good to go for after the weekend.

One question, is it worth stripping all the door cards etc off so you have a bit more freedom to pull and trace wires etc? I've done it before for another reason and it's not hard to do.

[A348W]

you honestly dont need a manual or wiring diagram. just draw a picture of your connector and the wire colours to each individual pin and put them back as you found them! what each wire does doesnt matter!

lhd/rhd, id guess the only difference is the window switches!

[Nosevi]

you honestly dont need a manual or wiring diagram. just draw a picture of your connector and the wire colours to each individual pin and put them back as you found them! what each wire does doesnt matter!

lhd/rhd, id guess the only difference is the window switches!

Snag is there are a few wires off each connector and it's not clear which go to which pin. There's also some pins that aren't used ie the pin is there but no wire. So on the passenger side I think we have 2 loose wires and 3 unwired pins. Drivers side I think similar, more empty pins than loose wires.

[PAUL V]

With my car i did away with the connector pins, removed the pins extended the wires, passed them though the plug and soldered them up inside the door.

If i recall it was best to remove the "strakes" off the door to gain access either way

[Qavion]

Snag is there are a few wires off each connector and it's not clear which go to which pin. There's also some pins that aren't used ie the pin is there but no wire. So on the passenger side I think we have 2 loose wires and 3 unwired pins. Drivers side I think similar, more empty pins than loose wires.

On RHD cars, I believe the harnesses are mirrored (left/right).

Also, the WSM wiring diagram has a few wires in the wrong holes (according to some owners).

e.g. on the driver's side, the white/red wire is reportedly not on pin 9, but on pin 15, the black wire is not on pin 4, but on pin 13.

Also, it was discovered recently that the internal wiring shown in the switches must be wrong (otherwise the windows wouldn't work).

I haven't figured out the actual switch internals, but the wiring to the switches (and the rest of the car) is here on one page instead of four:

https://www.dropbox.com/t/72jtKKiVVOv6ACcq

Link expires in 6 days.

Dropbox offers a preview page (you can zoom and scroll the image).

[Qavion]

(EDIT: In your photo of the plug, is that the driver's side? The colours match the left hand side on a LHD car. This should tell us if the harnesses are swapped or not.)

The pins however seem to be in different holes in some cases.

[Qavion]

Looks like your car has a large brown wire in slot 13 instead of a black one (earth)





There may be a few other changes, too. I see a small black wire between the violet/white and the blue wire.