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I recently acquired a 2011 F350, 6.7, CC, 4x4, LB w/ 244,000 on the clock. Since owning a 7.3 for the past 13 years, this truck has been a bit of a learning curve for me. Long story short just before I bought it the previous owner had the fan clutch replaced due to an overheating issue. Fast forward, everything was fixed and truck has running great. I noticed the other day my AC stopped blowing cold which apparently my compressor when into this weird funk state where the clutch would cycle on for maybe 2-3 seconds and go off for 30 seconds. It would constantly enter into this cycling loop. Not knowing the last time it was ever serviced, I went ahead and did a full AC service on it. Unfortunately after the service, my compressor clutch was still acting the same.
So decided to throw my scanner on it and the only code that popped up was a P0480 which states "Fan 1 Control Circuit". After looking at the harness going to the fan clutch I couldn't see anything wrong, connected to the clutch side so looked further down the cable. Apparently the engine harness connector that plugs the clutch pigtail in popped out of the hold down on the clutch bracket and not sure for how long had been rubbing on the serpentine belt. It pretty much ate away most the side of the connector including a few of the wires exposing the copper. The pigtail portion of the clutch harness that's part of the clutch seems ok. I am assuming that is where the P0480 code is being referenced from. I tried going back the the previous owner getting some info on exactly where he took it to get repaired but might as well try talking to a tire. So now it looks like I am unfortunately going to have to end up figuring out a way to replace the engine harness connector myself, if a replacement is available. There doesn't appear to be any slack to really work on it so it looks like I am going to be coming at it from the front which means I am going to have to clear out both radiators, condenser and trans cooler. So have a few questions if anyone can help me answer them...
1) Has anyone run into this issue before and other than how I described my process of possibly fixing this does anyone have any ideas on how to tackle this job?
2) Does Ford or anyone make a replacement engine harness connector for the fan clutch that I can use to replace my chewed up one?
3) Being that this electrical connector is chewed up enough to throw the P0480 code, could the current condition of my connector be possibly causing my AC Compressor issue I described above, or would the two be totally unrelated. I haven't studied the wiring schematics enough yet but I did see some references from the pigtail wiring to the AC circuitry. Just not sure what everything does just yet.
I didn't take any pictures last night since it was getting dark but will follow up later with some.
If you're looking to repair it, I'm assuming you'll have to cut the wires, solder and heat shrink them but not knowing what the connector looks like, I'll assume something like this?
Should be able to get a pigtail and splice into the factory harness. I would only go OEM, avoid amazon junk.
I did a quick search of Prosource and they don't list the fan pigtail for a 6.7L so you might want to call your local dealer, I'm sure its available. Or Autonation White Bear in Minnestota is super helpful online dealer:
Thanks guys for the suggestions. Sorry for the late reply. Got everything back up and going over the weekend but unfortunately had an issue with my phone not saving any of the many pictures I took so I will try and describe to the best that I can what I did to repair this.
First off, no one sells this particular style pigtail separately anywhere that I could have spliced in and coming from a long background in electronics I decided to do some detective work instead of purchasing the entire engine harness.- Looking at the chewed up connector from the engine harness side (which I was able to include a picture of) I was fortunate enough to have the part# spared which was "334720658" stamped on the side of the connector. Googling this appears to be a superseded Molex part# 334720606 and looking at the spec sheet this is what I found and looks to be an exact match...
I unfortunately was not able to match up the exact wiring color codes to the existing engine harness so getting as close as I can ended up having to create my own color scheme. I was able to track down a copy of the wiring diagram from Mitchell On-Demand at my buddies shop to help me determine which pin was which. These particular pins are designed to have the wire crimped on and the cheapest crimper I found for these pins was over $400 so that was definitely out of the question.
I've used Digikey Electronics quite a bit for past projects and was however fortunate to find that these two items were available...
You only use 5 pins out of this 6-pin connector so picked up 5 colors of 18G wire from the local parts house, 2 connectors (one to have as a spare) and 20 pins (better to have extra's) and proceeded to build the pigtail. Instead of crimping the wires to each pin I decided to solder them together and after bending the little crimp ears on each pin they inserted into the connector perfectly. I found where the original harness routes behind the water pump and was able to intercept the wiring there and solder in my new pigtail. I ended up shrink tubing the soldered splices I did and finished the job wrapping the pigtail with the following harness tape which I thought was much better to use than electrical tape and readily available on Amazon...
I did however have to remove the fan, clutch and upper fan shroud to gain access to route the new pigtail but saved myself from having to remove the entire front clip including the radiators which I was not looking forward to at all. In doing this I was able to keep the same length and routing that the original connector was at so placement wise this worked out great. I know this is quite a bit to list without supporting pictures and didn't even think to make sure I saved them after taking them which I never had a problem with before so sincerely apologize for that. I did clear up my P0480 code that I was getting before but still am having my AC issue described above so still looking into that. Might have just been an unrelated coincidence that both issues popped up at the same time.
If anyone has any questions or faces a similar issue requiring them to replace a pigtail connector that you can't get already assembled please let me know. Would be happy to help in any way I can.
Sean
Aftermath of the serpentine belt chewing the fan clutch connector (engine harness side)
Thanks guys for the suggestions. Sorry for the late reply. Got everything back up and going over the weekend but unfortunately had an issue with my phone not saving any of the many pictures I took so I will try and describe to the best that I can what I did to repair this.
First off, no one sells this particular style pigtail separately anywhere that I could have spliced in and coming from a long background in electronics I decided to do some detective work instead of purchasing the entire engine harness.- Looking at the chewed up connector from the engine harness side (which I was able to include a picture of) I was fortunate enough to have the part# spared which was "334720658" stamped on the side of the connector. Googling this appears to be a superseded Molex part# 334720606 and looking at the spec sheet this is what I found and looks to be an exact match...
I unfortunately was not able to match up the exact wiring color codes to the existing engine harness so getting as close as I can ended up having to create my own color scheme. I was able to track down a copy of the wiring diagram from Mitchell On-Demand at my buddies shop to help me determine which pin was which. These particular pins are designed to have the wire crimped on and the cheapest crimper I found for these pins was over $400 so that was definitely out of the question.
I've used Digikey Electronics quite a bit for past projects and was however fortunate to find that these two items were available...
You only use 5 pins out of this 6-pin connector so picked up 5 colors of 18G wire from the local parts house, 2 connectors (one to have as a spare) and 20 pins (better to have extra's) and proceeded to build the pigtail. Instead of crimping the wires to each pin I decided to solder them together and after bending the little crimp ears on each pin they inserted into the connector perfectly. I found where the original harness routes behind the water pump and was able to intercept the wiring there and solder in my new pigtail. I ended up shrink tubing the soldered splices I did and finished the job wrapping the pigtail with the following harness tape which I thought was much better to use than electrical tape and readily available on Amazon...
I did however have to remove the fan, clutch and upper fan shroud to gain access to route the new pigtail but saved myself from having to remove the entire front clip including the radiators which I was not looking forward to at all. In doing this I was able to keep the same length and routing that the original connector was at so placement wise this worked out great. I know this is quite a bit to list without supporting pictures and didn't even think to make sure I saved them after taking them which I never had a problem with before so sincerely apologize for that. I did clear up my P0480 code that I was getting before but still am having my AC issue described above so still looking into that. Might have just been an unrelated coincidence that both issues popped up at the same time.
If anyone has any questions or faces a similar issue requiring them to replace a pigtail connector that you can't get already assembled please let me know. Would be happy to help in any way I can.
Sean
Aftermath of the serpentine belt chewing the fan clutch connector (engine harness side)
The harness runs up and behind the water pump. I ended up tracing the wires up to the top of the engine where I had more room to work.
If I'm not mistaken the harness runs together in parallel with the crank sensor wiring so once I figured out which was which I cut the old harness out, stripped the ends back and soldered on the new pigtail I created with the parts I bought from Digikey. I also used similar color coded wiring so it will be easy to troubleshoot if I ever need to back probe the harness. There was litterately no room to try and salvage any of the ends next to the plug, even with the fan and radiator schroud removed without taking apart the entire front end and wasn't about to go that route.
I ended up taking pictures of everything when I did it but unfortunately had phone issues and was never able to upload them.
If you do end up having to do a job like this I highly recommend using something like this to wrap the new pigtail instead of using electrical tape..
The harness runs up and behind the water pump. I ended up tracing the wires up to the top of the engine where I had more room to work.
If I'm not mistaken the harness runs together in parallel with the crank sensor wiring so once I figured out which was which I cut the old harness out, stripped the ends back and soldered on the new pigtail I created with the parts I bought from Digikey. I also used similar color coded wiring so it will be easy to troubleshoot if I ever need to back probe the harness. There was litterately no room to try and salvage any of the ends next to the plug, even with the fan and radiator schroud removed without taking apart the entire front end and wasn't about to go that route.
I ended up taking pictures of everything when I did it but unfortunately had phone issues and was never able to upload them.
If you do end up having to do a job like this I highly recommend using something like this to wrap the new pigtail instead of using electrical tape..
That tape is some good stuff, but hopefully you slid some heat shrink tubing on those wires to protect them because that moisture will go through that cloth tape and cause corrosion.
This is what I use when I don't have het shrink or I'm doing a field repair.
Insulating Electrical Tape: High-Volt, 3M™, Scotch®, 130C, Rubber, 1 1/2 in x 30 ft, Black,
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