Help! Rotted headlight wiring harness

[Jeepcherocky]

I'm sorry if this is posted somewhere already. I search and couldn't find answers. The headlight and lighting wiring harness under the airbox on my 96 xj has rotted out. Both male and female connectors and the wires that go into them are shot. I've only read that it is a common problem. What have you done to fix this? Anyone ever just go to radioshack or some connector shop and buy a new similar connector and just solder that in? Thanks in advance!

 

[Mesh]

If there heavily corroded try to clean them up the best you can. It's easier to clean if you can pull the connectors out one by one. Don't break anything or mix it up. Use some contact cleaner and maybe scrub them with a wire brush. Then use some dielectric grease on all the metal parts when you put it back together.

While you’re at it upgrade the headlight loom either buy a kit or build it yourself. This part gets covered in the forums quite often.

 

[joe_peters]

If there heavily corroded try to clean them up the best you can. It's easier to clean if you can pull the connectors out one by one. Don't break anything or mix it up. Use some contact cleaner and maybe scrub them with a wire brush. Then use some dielectric grease on all the metal parts when you put it back together.

While you’re at it upgrade the headlight loom either buy a kit or build it yourself. This part gets covered in the forums quite often.

That would be my first choice, but if you can't do that then hit the salvage yard and grab a headlight harness out of a late model, make sure to cut it longer to get past the bad area on yours, then just solder/heat shrink it in--all done, nice and new.

 

[kastein]

The late model harness (97+) is different due to the layout of the lights changing - unless you like playing with electronics, retrofitting that harness is probably not for you.

My 96 has the same problem to some degree, but right now it just looks gross and still works. I expect to send it to the scrapper before that part actually breaks, so I'm ignoring the problem...

I have not determined what make/series the connector for the headlight harness on the old body style (96 down) is, but I know that FCI's 2.8mm automotive connector series is used on the new style, and is a much superior connector. You could easily pick up the two connector housings you need (male and female) and the crimp pins and set it up yourself, or you could go to the junkyard and salvage the connector with about 6" of harness on either side for ~10 bucks, or just get a new 96-down wiring harness with connector and splice it in. Any of these methods would work and still leave you able to unplug the harness... it's really up to you how to do it. Hell, you could even use butt splice crimp terminals and just eliminate the connector entirely, but you will probably curse that decision later on if you ever have to pull the header panel.