Folks, I need your help! I was away for a couple weeks and when I came back my 2002 F250 7.3 Powerstroke wouldn't start. It cranked strong, but would not start. Time to open the hood and crawl around - strangely as I was trying to figure it out, an agitated squirrel was circling my truck. I eventually found this (along with a cubic foot of pine-straw mulch nestled in my engine bay....)








Two sets of wires severed - each cut right at the base of the connector. These happen to be on the back of the fuel bowl, although I'm not sure what each of them does (I'm guessing one is for heating, maybe the other is the water sensor? would love to know...)

And then I also found this damage....



In addition to the 2 fuel bowl connectors, it looks like the little bugger chewed the wiring to the wastegate solenoid (if that's what this is) ALSO at the base of the connector. And the little red / green vacuum hoses / tubes (?) were chewed up (hard to see in the photo) right where they connect to the solenoid.

I'm guessing it will be a royal expensive pain to replace the wiring harness(es) altogether, so I am looking at better alternatives (unless there are none).

Question #1) What are your thoughts about how to repair these 3 connectors, given the wires are cut right at the base of each connector? There is no room to solder wires back together. Here is what I think my possibilities are:

1. Can take these connectors apart without destroying them? If so I can reinsert the wires, albeit a bit shorter.
2. Buy new connectors (but they are unique and it seems like they are only part of a full harness?)
3. Cut / reuse connectors off an old harness(es). If I have a "pigtail" wire on each, I can solder the wires together to the remaining harnesses. But I would need to find donor harnesses, preferably ones that no one minds ruining...
4. Just buy whole new harnesses and rewire.... Not sure which harnesses to buy - could use help in identifying them...
5. Capitulate and have it towed to the dealer and pay through the nose....

Question #2) Also, It appears that I may need to replace the wastegate solenoid (is that what that is?) because the red and green tubes are severed right where they connect to it. Does that sound like what I need to do?

I am open to ideas on how to best solve this....

Thank you in advance for any help!

Joe S.

 

I'm going ask this and you may think it's funny but do you have comprehensive insurance coverage on the truck. I found out years ago that animal attack is the same as if a tree fell on your truck. I had parked my 2001 CCSB F-350 in the woods for a week while deer hunting only to find something, probably a porcupine, had destroyed the trans wiring harness and all the rubber trans lines. I found this after I warmed the truck up and it wouldn't move. It ran for about a half an hour and pumped all the fluid on the ground. The end result was a trans rebuild and new harness all paid for by my insurance company.

 

Just go to a junk yard and snip off the connectors you need with plenty of wire and soldier them back to your harness.

 

Bertscw - Good suggestion - I hadn't thought of this as an insurance claim.... that will be a plan "c".

Right now I want to fix it myself if possible.

 

Yeah, that's not a bad idea. Not sure a junk yard will appreciate me destroying a several hundred dollar harness, but maybe they will let me get away with that.

It turns out you can actually BUY the connectors if you can identify them. Ford publishes a book of connectors with pigtails and sells them for this very purpose:

https://www.motorcraft.com/content/d...-Book-2016.pdf

I've figured out I need:

1. Wastegate control Plug Pigtail
2. IPR valve Pigtail
3. Fuel Bowl Heater / Water Indicator Pigtail.

And I'm probably going to need to buy a new wastegate control solenoid due to the broken vacuum lines where they connect to it.

Hopefully there isn't more damage that I haven't uncovered yet...

Thanks for all the helpful suggestions!

J.

 

Here is the actuator lines.

https://www.riffraffdiesel.com/waste...m-lines-99-03/

 

Yes, that is what I need - it looks like the solenoid itself is undamaged and I just need those lines.

I'm in better shape now - I've identified all the wiring pigtails and now have everything on order to hopefully fix it.

Thanks!

J.

 

The fuel bowl heater, just strip the wires back and cap them off. Unplug the connector and leave it unplug, it’s just a no start waiting to happen. Check fuse 30 under the dash to make sure it’s not blown...no WTS light is that fuse.
Clay, at Riff Raff probably also has the IPR pigtail and I know he carries the wastegate pigtail.

 

No one cares at the junk yards around here, guys will cut up harnesses just to get parts out easier. Personally I try to leave stuff like that for the next guy but I've snipped harnesses up for connectors when I need them. Not only did they not yell at me when I brought them up to the counter but wiring connectors was already on the parts list at a few bucks a connector.

 

Thanks for the tip about the fuel bowl heater! I went back and found some threads on it so I could understand the pro's and con's of it, and that sounds like a reasonable thing to do.

 

I'll remember that for next time... fortunately I could find most of this stuff online reasonably priced, but it does add up. It would certainly have saved me a few bucks.

 

Get a good dog for the squirrel

 

Just an update on the squirrel saga.

After fixing the original broken connectors that I found, it still would not start. I looked around some more and found the squirrel had also chewed through:

1) AC harness that runs from the compressor etc. He ruined two connectors on this harness. This harness is no longer available - it has been discontinued. Luckily I found a New-Old-stock harness online and replaced the whole AC harness. Much cleaner than replacing the connectors and easier to do.
2) Blower motor connector and Vacuum Pump connector - he chewed those clean right at the base of each connecter. So I bought pigtails for those and repaired them.

Of course it still wouldn't start (none of those things would account for that), so I kept looking and found 3 additional chewed through ground wires where they attach on the drivers side fender. Fortunately I was able to butt splice those 3 wires and didn't have to buy anything additional.

Then it started!!! I found though that the AC was stuck blowing through the defroster at that point. I found the vacuum pump fuse had blown (fuse 27, 15amp) and replaced that fuse. Vacuum pump was now running, but it wouldn't shut off and the controls in the truck were slow to switch from defrost mode to middle vents (big delay but eventually they would switch). I found that the vacuum line that runs from the reservoir box to the firewall had a slight slice in it. I was able to save the vacuum line and seal the hairline crack in it with some epoxy. I let it set overnight and then it held vacuum.

So now the odyssey is over! Thanks all for the helpful suggestions.

Note: I did some phone searches of "You pull it" junkyards in my area, but no good donor trucks were available. But I do appreciate the suggestions on that. I ended up spending about $190 in new connectors and harnesses to fix everything. In the olden days (pre-internet) this would have been so painful to figure out. Thanks all for the help...