1986 245 tailgate hinge wiring

[sos]

I am rewiring the broken wires in my tailgate hinge. My problem is that three of the four wires are broken, making it hard to tell what goes where. Inside the car I have yellow, blue, black and gray. In the tailgate all the wires are black (whoever did this had better not admit it). The yellow wire still had connection, so I figured out which tailgate wire corresponded. The broken piece of black wire connecting to the blue had no connectivity, but the insulation still held the pieces together enough that I could figure out which black wire went to the blue. This leaves the interior black and gray wires and figuring out which of the two remaining black wires they go to. All I have is the Haynes book, which doesn't give much info. Does anyone know which interior wire connects to what in the tailgate? That would make figuring out the two remaining wires easier. Any other suggestions for putting this back together will be appreciated. Thanks, Steve Maine

[darkdelta]

http://www.k-jet.org/documents/greenbooks/200-series/

This may help. The only info I have is for a 1990. If no joy from the above URL post back.

Good Luck.

[sos]

Thanks much Darkdelta, that looks like useful detail for future problems.

It turns out I found my own solution. I followed the black tailgate wires further into the tailgate. After the two wires in question went through connectors, they changed to black and gray at the wiper motor, the two colors inside the car. Black to black, gray to gray and my wiper motor now works fine.

The defroster still doesn't work, still working on that one. I suspect the problem may lie elsewhere, since those wires I'm pretty sure are hooked up right.

Steve
Maine

[swiftjustice44]

Good luck! The wagons, as you know, have wire harnesses passing through both hinges and will fail. On my 89, the short caused the right hand side parking lights to not work...immediately blew the fuse. There are replacement mini harnesses available that run from under the rear headliner, through the hinge and into the tailgate.

[Joseph/TX]

Dumb design. You can tell just by looking at it that the wires running through the hinge aren't going to last long. When I replaced them on my '89, I skipped the hinges entirely and just ran them directly to the tailgate..

[sos]

Originally Posted by Joseph/TX

Dumb design. You can tell just by looking at it that the wires running through the hinge aren't going to last long. When I replaced them on my '89, I skipped the hinges entirely and just ran them directly to the tailgate..

That's what I did, just ran a cable from under the roof liner to the tailgate.

Steve