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Limp mode, wiring issue

4K views 6 replies 2 participants last post by  GarySmith 
#1 ·
My daughter has the 2008 Avenger V6. Runs great except when it doesn't. While doing some maintenance we notice the harness from the engine wasn't secured so we secured it using the clip to attach it back to the engine compartment (basically plastic clip was unhooked at some point). After that the car would randomly go into limp mode.

What we have found is that if you wiggle the harness everything works great. Inspecting the harness we found that the connector from the engine side of the hardness has some wires that were apparently partially stripped for probing (and never taped back up). They aren't in bad shape but they need to be cleaned up none the less.

I suspect the original owner had some issues at the harness connector and as such played around with it some.

I have been looking for a full diagram of this harness to help isolate the wires that might be causing it. I stumbled across one a few weeks back but didn't save it, now I can only find it on paywall diagram sites.

From my understanding there are only a few sensors on the engine that would trip this. My intent is to bypass these wires on the connector once I know which ones I need to focus on.

Any thoughts or suggestion (or diagrams) would be great.
 
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#4 ·
Perhaps you could follow the wires and locate what component they end at and post that here.
As for wiring diagrams... about the only active member here is Member Intrepid who MAY have access to them and could help you. But all the same a posting of component or where in the engine bay this is would be helpful as the posted pic focuses on the connector.
 
#5 ·
I'm going to try to clean out the connector and possibly reset the pins. It's pretty greasy. This is the part of the harness they were probing and the part of the harness that when wiggles causes the limp mode (the black connector). I believe it has 8 pins total that are actually in use. The grey connector looks to be in good shape. I'm not against replacing the connector all together.

Motor vehicle Light Automotive tire Hood Automotive fuel system
Automotive lighting Finger Mobile phone Telephony Communication Device
Communication Device Finger Gadget Audio equipment Electronic engineering
 
#6 ·
This probably has nothing to do with it but the throttle body DBW connection clip is broken but we had it secured in place. I ordered a new one for this model and it came in today to find out it's the wrong clip. Taking a picture and researching it, it looks like the one from the Dodge Ram.

I have used contact cleaner to clean the two connectors as well as the 4 main connectors to the ECM. All of those wires look good. I'm going to give it a drive tomorrow to try to break it again and see if I can pull a code off of it.

Does anyone know if they switched connectors mid year or something for the DBW or did I just order the wrong part originally?
 
#7 ·
I managed to clean all of the oil out of the connector. I suspect the prior owner tried to use oil of some type as a makeshift grease. I really don't know what they were thinking. I had some issues getting the ECM harness connector back on because the retention clip broke. I was able to secure it with some heavy zip ties. I will work on a better solution if the need arises. I have found that connector on a web site that I will see if I can maybe repair it using one of those (it was like under $10 for the connector). I notice the connectors are multi piece so I might get away with it. I also cleaned and repaired the wires.

The car overall is running well (as this problem was random). During testing the car would beep and occasionally have the check engine warning light on for a second or two. Car has oil so I'm thinking that might still be on the same harness that was affected.

I would still use the diagram if @Intrepid has one for it.

Also, learned the hard way not to lay any tools on the wheel well. My 15mm slid down the driver side and I had to pull all of the wheel well shields off to get to it. On the plus side, I found a screw driver in there (and lots of old leaves). Seems like a bad/odd design to leave that open like that.
 
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