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Bosch Sidemarker Terminal/Connector - Need to Pass Inspection
Hello,
I'm new to the forum and new to the PCar world, have owned every German brand except Porsche and finally decided to get a Porsche. Bought a super low mileage Arctic Silver 997.1 (I was specifically looking for 997 and wanted one that had serviceable IMS). What a great car. I have had far more powerful cars, but this car is simply a ton of fun to drive. You all know the story, however its all new to me.
In any case I need to get my car inspected and I wanted to change the side markers from Amber to Clear. The driver side swap out went easy, however I ran into a problem on the passenger side. When trying to replace the passenger side side marker and pulling the amber one, the male terminal/connecter on the Bosch EV1 type plug pulled out and was lost. It turns out the harness was caught up on some internal body work that I could not see when removing amber marker. The male terminal/connector that pulled out of the Bosh plug may have fallen into the body in front of from wheel well.
You can see from the pictures that the blue wire for the side marker is seated correctly, but the brown wire pulled completely out of the Bosch plug and the male terminal/connector that was on it is now missing (its not stuck inside the Bosch plug as you can see from pic)
I need to figure out where I can get the right size/shape male terminal/connector to crimp back on (and ideally the plug cover for that brown wire. You can see the blue wire has a plug/filler to fill up the hole on the Bosch plug).
The male terminal/connector that is missing from the brown wire looks like it was a pentagon (5 sided). It's difficult to see from the picture but the female side inside the plug looks like its a female pentagon (5-sided) connector, but I could be wrong. I looked pretty closely with flashlight.
The pic enclosed will show the problem.
The bottom line is I need the right size/shape pentagon (5-sided) shaped male terminal/connecter to crimp on to the brown wire (almost like a bullet connector, but instead of a bullet a pentagon)
You can see from the pics that the brown wire pulled out and the male connecter (the part I need) is lost, so I need that connector and need to crimp it back on the brown wire and then re-attach it to the Bosch EV Plug.
I can't pass inspection without it so I am stuck.
I am thinking the male pentagon connector may not have a separate Porsche Part number/separate SKU, since I think its jut a component of the wiring harness for the lights., but I easily could be wrong, maybe it does have its own part number.
I don't want to be stuck having to replace the whole harness (time & $$) due to a simple terminal/connector. I have spent hours online searching for things like "Bosch EV1 plug connectors" etc. and most of the things that come up are for Bosch Connectors for Fuel injection systems and the spare connectors don't look anything like the size/shape that would work here.
Apologies for the long post, just trying to be clear on what the problem is. Any help is greatly appreciated.
Thx,
Mark
(p.s. I'll post on another forum too, since I have a feeling this is not an easy one i.e. tracking down the pentagon male connector, so apologies in advance if some of you see this twice) Passenger side Bosch Sidemarker Plug with brown wire pulled out and male connector missing Picture of back of passenger side Bosch Sidemarker connector and female/pentagon receptacle that brown wire pulled out from.
Last edited by MarkQ; Nov 21, 2020 at 02:47 PM.
Reason: typo
@mjosco First thanks for replying. Also thanks for the link to Rock Auto. The correct connector is actually the first connector that comes up on the list on that link you sent.
I did buy a few of those pigtails (they are Bosch EV1 style) from another source (I didn't think about Rock Auto....good idea).
The biggest challenge I will have with this is, as you can see from pic above, that brown wire only sticks out 1 cm from the body work so cutting, splicing, crimping is super difficult.
One thing I found online are some butt splicers that do not require crimping AND they have a small solder ball/ring inside that melts with a heat gun. They get great reviews. I did a dry run on 18 gauge wire yesterday and it came out great (surprisingly strong). I am posting this here in case it can help anyone else:
Enclosed is a pic of the mating side of existing connector.
Other pic is a pic of the dry run of using the "heat shrink, no crimp, solder" butt splicer.
It turns out the pigtails on the replacement EV1 connectors is 18 gauge but I believe the blue & brown wire on the existing harness in 22 gauge, however the butt splicers above can work with both (they come in different sizes and the 'red' ones in the pic support 18 ga or 22 ga).
If I didn't have so little room to play with (1 cm of wire sticking out of side marker opening) this would be far easier to solve.
Last edited by GT3 Chuck; Nov 28, 2020 at 08:53 PM.
You could release the broken pin from the stock Bosch connector and carefully uncrimp the remaining broken wire then recrimp in the remaining stock wire. It is tedious but can be done. I would just buy a new pigtail and solder/shrink it into the stock wiring if it was me.
You could release the broken pin from the stock Bosch connector and carefully uncrimp the remaining broken wire then recrimp in the remaining stock wire. It is tedious but can be done. I would just buy a new pigtail and solder/shrink it into the stock wiring if it was me.
Originally Posted by mjosco
This German made cloth adhesive tape is what Audi/VW/Porsche and others use. Wrap the splice area with this and you will be good as OEM.
@mjosco Thanks for the reply, I appreciate it.
Coincidentally I got it sorted out today (I had to wait for a few days for things to show up that I ordered).
The biggest challenge with all this was there was only 1cm of wire that could protrude from the side marker opening - making cutting, crimping, soldering or anything, very difficult.
I tried pulling the connecter out from the EV1 connector housing. It turned out to be near impossible. The biggest issue was there was no room to work with, the connector did not protrude from the body work enough, an even if it did I have heard from others you can't unseat those terminal once they are clicked/seated in, based on the design of the terminal.
Here's what I ended up having to do, (in case anyone else runs into the issue of side marker connecter coming undone/pulled away from the wiring coming out of wiring harness).
- heat shrink butt splicers with solder ring embedded in the (these were invaluable, a tradition crimp/butt splice would not have worked). These were great: https://www.amazon.com/Connectors-Kuject-Electrical-Waterproof-Automotive/dp/B07Y1BMC6K
- isoprop alcohol (to clean the copper wire before resin applied)
- needle nose pliers
- liquid electrical tape
- heat gun
- tin foil and brown bag to protect car paint
Process:
- remove the existing Bosch EV1 style plug that plugs into the side marker
- when removing the EV1 connecter, if possible, cut into the connecter/plug to leave as much wire as possible (i.e. the brown & blue wires that come out of the wiring harness)
- slide heat shrink butt splicer onto the remaining brown wire - small opening/end of the butt splicer toward the wiring harness of the car, large hole/opening/end of the butt splicer facing out/away from the car- and then later do the same onto the blue wire AFTER the brown wire has been spliced on and "heat shrunk" and temporarily covered in tin foil per below next steps...you have to do it one by one (brown, blue or vice versa) since if you put a heat shrink butt splicer onto the brown wire and another onto the blue wire, and then apply heat gun to one wire, the other butt splicer will melt/shrink when you do not want it to. I covered the wire/butt splicer that I was NOT applying heat gun to in tin foil (loosely wrapped) so it did not absorb any heat.
- clean exposed copper on both the EV1 pigtail connecter and the blue & brown wires from the harness with isopropyl alcohol
- splice the brown wire coming out of the cars wiring harness onto the black wire on the EV1 style pigtail
- squirt some Kester-186 resin on the splice
- slide the heat shrink/butt splicer (that is now sitting on the brown wire) onto the spliced wire (the splice of the black pigtail and brown wire from wiring harness) SEATING THE SOLER RING that is inside the heat shrink butt slicer over the middle of the splice.
- apply heat gun - UNIFORMLY on all side of butt splicer on LOW heat (its melts fast)...you are better off going slow and having to reheat, if you overdo it its trouble
- let cool
....
- do same procedure for blue wire
- once both wires/spliceed joints are cooled/secured....apply liquid electrical tape to each butt splicer/wire. In theory this is not needed BUT if you over apply the heat gun, since the wire gauge coming out of the cars harness is either 20 or 22 (not sure) it can easily melt AND since the side marker opening is so tight, the heat shrink/butt splicer may not be fully closed/melted onto the wire
...anyway, this was a lot of work mostly due to the tight working space and short length of wire coming out of wiring harness.
Lastly, I covered most of the front fender with brown paper bag using painters tape and then taped tin foil over that (with cutout for side marker opening) so as not to expose car paint to heat, resin, tools, liquid electrical tape.
Everything works great and all is working again...all for a piece of wire that got hung up on internal body work as I was removing side marker.
Worst case I could have just paid to have the wiring harness replaced (parts & labor maybe $600), but for a broken connector/22 gauge wire this fix seemed just as good and total parts (heat gun, pigtail, Kester-186 resin, butt splicer with solder ring, liquid electrical tape) was ~$45.
Last edited by GT3 Chuck; Nov 28, 2020 at 08:56 PM.
