[FIX]Passenger side wiring harness leak

Vent shades, black outs, things like that
Post Reply
Bapsu
Registered User
Posts: 100
Joined: Mon Aug 14, 2017 4:05 pm

[FIX]Passenger side wiring harness leak

Post by Bapsu »

I guess GM L-bodies water leak is quite well known here, but still there can be little surprises when you start taking things apart. This story is based on -93 Corsica (sorry :D ), which have spent its whole life here in Finland.

In my case water was coming in between cars body and the harness. Actually the harness was feeling very loose on the firewall. No wonder why, since this was the outcome (only one of the bolts was holding the connector anymore): https://imgur.com/JGBZdr3

After some more digging and fighting managed to take the connector out: https://imgur.com/HyFXJwE
As you see, the other bolts hole isnt there anymore...

After tapping and bit with screw driver and removing worst parts of the rust: https://imgur.com/4qeZ23T

And more: https://imgur.com/J7w4uO3
Not much left eh?

Spent almost week with sanding the rust off with battery powered driller: https://imgur.com/a/WMACW
It was one hell of a mess to take all the rust away... fitting the drill there wasnt easy, the rust was quite sticky also, took hours to get some spots clean.

Same job below the dash: https://imgur.com/a/AFdX6
Taking all the insulation stuff and wiring under the dash was quite annoying job also... even worse is putting all them back there.

Time to cut suitable pieces of steel and mount them to the body somehow (I dont have welder and welding didnt come to question in this case): https://imgur.com/a/qf8wD
Also tested hows the connector sitting there.

Then its time to kit/filler/whatever you call it. You know what I mean :wink: : https://imgur.com/a/JDWoL
And more: https://imgur.com/a/18gWI
https://imgur.com/a/PMiOb
Took hours to sand the kit to smooth surface, but after hours and hours managed to make it look like brand new and silky smooth.

Then painting: https://imgur.com/a/6keo5 https://imgur.com/a/Qc1e3

And finally sealing: https://imgur.com/a/idVP5
Used roof bitume to seal the connection finally. At least this one isnt leaking anymore! Neither rusting I hope. It looks just like before, though A lOT cleaner (someone else had messed with the old connection with bitume/silicone also, also I sealed it year ago with bitume but I knew this connector needed hard work to become water proof).

Now I just need to put the interior back, which seem to be one more painful operation...

Hope you like this walkthrough. This is both to warn and help L-body owners to keep up their cars. My cars drivers side is still untouched and slightly leaking, so I think there will be more guidance coming... (next summer maybe :P)

Forgive me if I posted this to wrong section... I'm quite new here. :oops:


User avatar
ifixalot
Registered User
Posts: 668
Joined: Tue Dec 26, 2006 10:56 am
Location: Deerfield Illinois

Re: [FIX]Passenger side wiring harness leak

Post by ifixalot »

Nice work. I can see a lot of effort went into that. Even all the sanding on the under side must have taken a lot of patience.
Then you even painted with a matching color. I hope the repair lasts.


Bapsu
Registered User
Posts: 100
Joined: Mon Aug 14, 2017 4:05 pm

Re: [FIX]Passenger side wiring harness leak

Post by Bapsu »

Yeah, to be honest sanding and kitting (or whats the word for adding that filler stuff to repair rust damage) took weeks. Specially sanding with battery powered driller took like one week, doing few hours per day. Also messed up the drill; socket is loose nowadays.

It was quite easy to find matching color, just took the paint code and went to nearest spare parts store. Im quite pleased with the shading, actually if you dont know I have done something there, you couldnt see it. :)


Post Reply