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Electrical Advice for When Taking Off Doors

themauler

NAXJA Forum User
Location
Va Beach
I have made my half doors for my XJ and will just lide them on and off for when I go wheeling. I made four half doors, but my main concern is that I have power windows and power locks. From what I understand people snip the wires at the door and make male and female plugs so they can just disconnect quickly. I am all for the quick disconnect but I wanted to make this job clean.

Is there a universal plug that i can buy to Splice all my wires into from the door, then use the other half of the plug to splice those wires so all i have to do is disconnect one big plug, not a bunch of wires??

Links and pictures would be Great!

Thanks Ahead of Time

Nick:)
 
My '96 has a plug like you describe already from the factory.

Just unplug and your wiring comes right out, clean and easy. It's in the kick panel.
 
I have a 96 SE with no options and the only thing I had to deal with was the speaker wire and yes, it should have a quick connect plug. Just remove the rubber tube thing and you'll find it.


I have a set of 4 half doors and they are AWESOME when it's nice out....plus my A/C doesn't work.
 
Your drivers door should be the only one with a large number of wires, for the remote door window switches, and those should all be connected with one plug. The speaker wires will be seperate though. For the other doors if you want to consolidate the wiring to a single plug weatherpack connectors can be had in sizes from 1 to I believe 8 terminals, possibly more but I haven't had a need to use one larger than 6 yet.
 
There are connectors under the kick panels for the front doors (4dr) and though it's a bit of a pain in the ass they aren't bad once you do it a couple times. The wiring for the rear doors goes quite a distance under the trim before it gets to the connector though, so those are a real pain unless you add your own disconnects.

I'd suggest AMP mate-n-lock, MSD Weathertight, or Canon/Amphenol military style barrel connectors if you intend to add connectors to avoid removing the trim periodically or leaving it off. Personally I will probably use Canon/Amphenols if I ever do this, they are by far the best but are expensive (like, 30 dollars each expensive) and bulky.
 
Your drivers door should be the only one with a large number of wires, for the remote door window switches, and those should all be connected with one plug. The speaker wires will be seperate though. For the other doors if you want to consolidate the wiring to a single plug weatherpack connectors can be had in sizes from 1 to I believe 8 terminals, possibly more but I haven't had a need to use one larger than 6 yet.

Actually, my 99 had 19 wires in the passenger front door....not counting the speaker wire. I ended up using 3 trailer harness plugs (6 wires a piece) to do mine just on that one door. Pain in the ass to wire all that but now I can take that door off without pulling kickpanel. The driver's side, for now is still using the factory "disconnects" but they're a lot easier to fenagle than the passenger side ones. For the rears, I just spliced in a section of wire to extend the plugs reach. Works great.
 
First I tried using the AMP Mate-N-Lock on all the doors. Worked good except the drivers door where everything comes in, so I had to use 2 of them there and it was too much.

Drivers_Door_Wires.sized.jpg


Later I switched to the military-style Amphenol connector

Amphenol_Socket_Booted.sized.jpg


Amphenol_Connected.sized.jpg


Amphenol_Socket_Mounted.sized.jpg


I had already enlarged the hole in the A-pillar, otherwise I would have had to enlarge it in order to make this work.

If I were to do this again I would go hunt the junkyards for another car that already has a quick disconnect from the factory and figure out a way to use that. It's become somewhat common since it is easier for the assembly line to bolt on a pre-wired door. But we don't have much gap either so it has to either be flat connector or something that can be recessed and still reached easily. The other approaches pushed me into a corner (needing a larger hole) which has all kinds of secondary problems (make your own boot, etc)
 
Your drivers door should be the only one with a large number of wires, for the remote door window switches, and those should all be connected with one plug. The speaker wires will be seperate though. For the other doors if you want to consolidate the wiring to a single plug weatherpack connectors can be had in sizes from 1 to I believe 8 terminals, possibly more but I haven't had a need to use one larger than 6 yet.

my 91 and 96 had 3 connectors per side

my 97 has 5 on the passenger side and 3 on the drivers
 
First I tried using the AMP Mate-N-Lock on all the doors. Worked good except the drivers door where everything comes in, so I had to use 2 of them there and it was too much.

Drivers_Door_Wires.sized.jpg

Did you have the connectors keyed in any way? Maybe male on one connector and female on the other.
I can imagine things could get ugly if you swapped unkeyed connectors.
These connectors are nice, it looks like there's a wire harness clamp.
I'll be looking for these on future jobs.:thumbup:
 
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