Wiring harness in 2 separate places severed completely?

Tiny
VENUSJEANINE
  • MEMBER
  • 2006 FORD RANGER
  • 6 CYL
  • 4WD
  • AUTOMATIC
  • 190,000 MILES
I have 2, 8-month-old American Bully Puppies their mom an American Pitt bull Terrier. Their dad an American Bulldog. They made beautiful puppies. I love the puppies, but I never wanted more dogs. The problem is squirrels. There are squirrels that tease these dogs from morning to night. The mother and female puppy are most affected as they wake up to chase and run through anything to catch these things. I have seen them literally try to get up underneath some of the vehicles here to get to these squirrels that go up underneath int he hardest to reach places. This has caused plastic or covers in the wheel well areas to be damaged from the dog's fixation on getting these squirrels. These chattering little creatures just toy with the prey mentality of a dig that's so instinctual, they just can't ignore it. This has led to the truck having the wiring harness in 2 separate places severed completely. First place is under the car where the wires seem to run close by the distributor. About 7 wires there were all severed. But by the front driver's wheel well another cluster of wires were also found to be completely severed. The car just turns over and won't start. Before I knew of the severity I had a friend come to help me find out why the car wasn't starting. He rewired the cluster underneath but then we found the cluster by the wheel well. I've looked up the cost. It's enormous. It's my daughter's truck. I just want to know if we can solder the wires. And shrink wrap them and repair the problem or is there secondary issues because they have been severed that we will run into doing that? Please give me something, anything that I can do to fix this. I'm lost completely lost with this one.
Saturday, July 5th, 2025 AT 1:00 AM

16 Replies

Tiny
STEVE W.
  • MECHANIC
  • 14,777 POSTS
Sounds like some cute pups. Rodents can cause a lot of damage very fast. They like to chew and because the companies use a soy-based plastic in the insulation, they think it's tasty as well. I have seen new cars that needed thousands of dollars of wiring harness repairs from rats and chipmunks.
Wiring repair is not a hard thing; it just takes time and effort. Usually, you just find the two ends of the wire, say it's a blue with red stripe, the rodent chewed 4 inches of it off. Get some wire from the parts store in the same size as what was there, then you need wire strippers and heat shrink tubing as well as a way to solder the wires. The first thing will be to disconnect the battery, you don't know what they chomped so removing the power is a good idea, then remove the panels that are in the way, most just use screws or push fasteners to retain them. The attached shows the various bits that come off so the liner can be moved out of the way. Then before you touch it, take some pictures, there are times that a harness has to be run in a particular way and if you take it all apart it's possible to forget. The pics can help a lot. Then you can get to the harness. There are a lot of ways to repair the wires. My preferred way is to use new wire as needed, with soldered and adhesive lined clear heat shrink tubing. I like the clear because the next person can then see that there is a splice and what colors the wires are if they are hunting a problem.
Explaining the process would take a while but there are a lot of videos out there, like these:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q7iFFYkwIVY
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wqV-EyYDEAg
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dkyREKOVBnU
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WlReovGlzx4

Grab some wire and practice in the house and then go out and repair the Ranger.
Now once you are done with the wires, trying to keep this from happening again is harder. There are a lot of products out there that are touted as keeping the rodents away, I have yet to find ones that actually work that don't require running the harness inside some form of armor! However, you can tape up the repaired areas and they sell split loom at the parts stores that you can add as a line of defense. Honda sells a rodent tape #4019-2317 that is very expensive, it's a spongy electrical tape that has capsaicin in it (stuff that make hot peppers hot and pepper spray nasty) but although I have seen it work on some critters, others seem to like the taste! Now one thing to look into before all this, check with your homeowners and car insurance folks, some of them will cover this type of damage which could make life a lot easier.
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+1
Saturday, July 5th, 2025 AT 7:49 AM
Tiny
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Puppies.
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Saturday, July 5th, 2025 AT 9:57 AM
Tiny
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Sorry about the pics I had some of the dilemma I'm in with the puppy pics. If u remember we fixed the first cluster of wires under the car near distributor I think not a heat shrink solder job though I'll have to resend when my phone charges more. I have PTSD. This is a lot for me to take in. So, I'm going to study the pics and your response. When my phone charges send those pics and I'm sure the ones underneath ate not done like they should be, so they are uniform. Give me 1 hour and thank you for your direction.
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Saturday, July 5th, 2025 AT 10:01 AM
Tiny
STEVE W.
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No problem. Go sit down, play with the pups and come back when you have the time. We'll be here. Most of us don't work bankers' hours so no need to worry about closing times or that.
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Saturday, July 5th, 2025 AT 10:06 AM
Tiny
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Okay
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Saturday, July 5th, 2025 AT 10:11 AM
Tiny
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Do I see 5 pictures 1 with instructions I don't understand what it's telling me. Does it correspond to each pic? Am I supposed to find each numbered place and remove each bolt as described or am I to buy the parts it's describing? I need to take pics of each one of these described places numbered first so I remember what I did assuming.
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Saturday, July 5th, 2025 AT 10:14 AM
Tiny
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So my feed says I have 7 replies, but I don't know how to read them. I checked messages my inbox says empty. How do I read all your messages?
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Saturday, July 5th, 2025 AT 10:19 AM
Tiny
STEVE W.
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The images are the bolts and screws that hold in the inner fender shields. It's usually easier to remove them to access the wires and have room to inspect and repair without needing to stuff your hands into tiny openings so I posted the images of the screws and such that hold them in. Both sides are pretty much the same. The main reason for the pictures is just to have a reference for where the wires run and where the clips and such go. I have three cheap video cameras that get turned on if I'm doing some odd job that I may need to stop in the middle of. Always fun to come back to a project after waiting for 3 months for parts then trying to recall what went where. Normally not a problem but it gives me a reference if needed.
The first one is just to show which side the images refer to, the locations are mirrored to the other side. The videos should help as well, they show the same wiring repair methods I use. You could use crimps, but I try to avoid that on stationary wiring, it hold better and corrodes far less. I feel sorry for you though if you are doing this off a cell sized screen.
Oh, and those are cute troublemakers you have there. Chyna reminds me of the female raptor in Jurassic Park "She is working things out".
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Saturday, July 5th, 2025 AT 10:29 AM
Tiny
STEVE W.
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Are you able to read this? These are the only posts related to your vehicle I'm making, and this is the fourth reply. If you see those, I'm not sure what the others are as they are not from me.
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Saturday, July 5th, 2025 AT 10:33 AM
Tiny
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Did you get last pic from me?
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Saturday, July 5th, 2025 AT 11:01 AM
Tiny
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Did you get the last pic from me? I know it is super small and is under the wheel well. This nest is under a truck near distributor. We repaired, reconnected this best we could but I think they will need redone if to be like the videos.
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Saturday, July 5th, 2025 AT 11:29 AM
Tiny
STEVE W.
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Yeah wire nuts are not weatherproof. But if they got it to work for a few days while you gather things to do the proper repair then it's fine. Where those are broken you can repair them without taking anything apart. What you can do in those cases is route the harness farther in and keep it out of the pinch area.
So far I've seen 3 pups, one pic of broken harness and one with wire nuts. If you sent other they didn't make it.
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Saturday, July 5th, 2025 AT 12:02 PM
Tiny
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This is what I've come up with what I have around here. Will this be appropriate for all weather? Its wire and the heat shrink connecting. No barrels to pinch off I don't.
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Saturday, July 5th, 2025 AT 12:17 PM
Tiny
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Have anything that small and I won't know if that repair on the bottom works for now until I get what's under the wheel well back together but that's not the adhesive heat shrink it actually soldered and just covered with heat shrink.
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Saturday, July 5th, 2025 AT 12:21 PM
Tiny
VENUSJEANINE
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It's fixed we reconnected the wires and it started back up.
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Saturday, July 5th, 2025 AT 2:22 PM
Tiny
STEVE W.
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Okay, being that isn't adhesive type it won't seal real well, however now that it's running you can get some liquid electrical tape, Slather that on the ends of the heat shrink you have, let it dry and tape it up, then because that had loom on it that got cut, tape that and then get a piece that is larger and put that over top. Should keep it from getting damaged again. Then take it to the local ice cream place and get a banana split for you and 3 pup cups for the beasts. And congratulations on the repair.
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Saturday, July 5th, 2025 AT 4:14 PM

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