Tailgate wiring repair

[Shaggy33]

Decided to take this on today as I noticed as least one wire was broken on the hinge joint, visible when you open the tailgate. That'll be the central locking wire given that the rear door doesn't auto open or Lock!
I'm gonna down the external route coming out of side of headliner and into the tailgate with some black conduit, not prettiest but will do me. Not buying new harnesses as I have tons of wire I can use and will just solder it all together.
Now don't shoot me down for asking this as I know this has been done to death and I've read loads but can someone just help me with the following....
I've loosened drivers side hinge, just enough to pull wires through (I snipped them all at visible section when you open tailgate. So I now have the 4 wires hanging inside the boot that I need to connect up to wires inside tailgate and they are lightish blue, red, green and yellow. When I look at the short ends left at hinge which need to be pulled out from tailgate side I think I can see a black wire in there amongst the others but might be wrong...is there a black...?
Also Do I need to loosen hinge again to pull these wires free of hinge and where do I pull from? I can feel the wires in the little hole right at the top of tailgate but can't get to them...!

[Shaggy33]

Had another look this morning. The black wire I can see sticking out of hinge won't budge and I've loosened hinge as much as I dare....
as for the near side I can't seem to pull any wires free no matter how much I loosen hinge....am I right in thinking ns is just licence plate lights? If so why have I got 4 wires going into hinge from boot? Also someone has already been in here tinkering as I haven't got white oem connectors, they're home made crimp connector jobbies.
So two questions really. Without taking tailgate off how can I free these wires and 2. How do I get to wires in actual tailgate to pull from that side as they're all tucked down the sides and my fingers are too fat to get in there lol!

[Clifford Pope]

If you are by-passing the hinges you don't need to get the wires out - just cut them off flush.
To get new wires down the inside of the tailgate feed something flexi-rigid like stout garden wire and then tie a bit of thin stout cord to a loop on the end and pull the cord back through. Then bundle the new wires together and tie them to the cord. Try and do a sort of tapered splice so that there is no real knot - one loop of cord and then binding it tightly with twine usually works - and pull the cord back through very gently, waggling the free end of the wires to try and guide them round the bends. You could even lubricate it with a squirt of silicone spray.
It may snag on one of the hinge bolts at the exit hole - you can remove one temporarily.

I'd trace each wire back in turn from the hinge - that way you can be sure to match up the colours. They change colour at connectors inside the lining and the tailgate.

[Stephen Edwin]

Clifford thank you for confirming that the wires can be replaced through the hinges with the tailgate in situ.

I often see references to removing the tailgate or resting it on a work bench or similar while replacing the wires through the hinges. Why is that done? Does it make an aspect of the task easier?

And thank you for the warning about cable colours changing at connections.

[Shaggy33]

Hi Clifford

I too appreciate the time taken to write this. I've been doing some more work in it this evening and have established 4 wires each side. There has definitely been some work done here by someone else as there are multi coloured wires all over the place with very dodgy connections. It will be a bit of trial and error as to which wire goes where but I've stripped them all back and will go them systematically

[Angie]

I don't know if this will be any help. There's a link somewhere on this site to some very clear wiring diagrams but I'm not sure how to find it. I just happened to save this one when I was having tailgate wiring problems a few years ago.

[Clifford Pope]

Originally Posted by Stephen Edwin

Clifford thank you for confirming that the wires can be replaced through the hinges with the tailgate in situ.

NO, not through the hinges. I thought the OP was BYPASSING the hinges, but was referring to the difficulty of getting new wires down inside the tailgate where the channel narrows at the side.

[Shaggy33]

Correct Clifford, bypassing hinges;-). Made some progress tonight, focusing on offside for now and found it easier to cut wires at bottom of tailgate and feed them into the tailgate channel from the hinge end. I was going to be lengthening wires anyway so cutting them is no issue. I connected what I believe to be the tailgate central locking (oem blue and yellow, two wires) but when I went to test it non of the central locking worked whereas before I started on this venture at least the 4 doors worked! I was pretty peeved off and felt like Clarke Griswold in xmas vacation when he can't get the Christmas lights working. I thought it had to be sometime simple and something I'd done since starting to tinker with the damn tailgate. I went to fuse box and as it's getting dusk it's quite dark in the footwell and would you Adam and believe it there was a little flickering spark on fuse 8 so I disconnected battery again, cleaned fuse contacts, rubbed them with a little bit of sandpaper and hey presto the little vanity light came on in glove box. Went to door and tentatively turned key and not only did all 4 doors lock but so did the boot!!
Chuffed to bits now just got to sort the other two wires on drivers side which I'm hoping are for the wiper...then nearside to tackle and that will be a process of Elimination as I've got so many different colours wires from po tinkering!

[Clifford Pope]

Well done - progress !
Remember that one of the wires, can't remember which colour, is always live with ignition on because it's the one that parks the wiper. It always does that even if the wiper switch is off, like the front ones. So be careful not to connect it to the wrong thing. If it's not connected or is broken it's what causes that irritating fault when the wiper won't park automatically and you have to try and stop the arm through the mirror at the right moment.

I thought when you mentioned the blue and yellow central locking wires you were going to have the problem I had once - the colours were right, there was power at the operating relay, I could make it move with the door lock, but it still didn't lock the tailgate. The answer was Volvo had reversed the colours at some point, and I'd used a blue/yellow loom when it should have been the yellow/blue.
I had the same problem with a new speedo sensor - the colours were right but wired in reverse sense to the connector, so the speedo only worked in reverse.

[Shaggy33]

Thanks for the heads up Clifford. Well I spoke to soon, I've just tried connecting what I thought were the correct wires for rear wiper but alas, nothing happened. A bit strange given that that is how they were connected before I took everything apart....the only thing that is noggling me is a rogue black wire stuck in the hinge but given that It was already cut off either side of hinge means it was never connected anywhere, obviously someone else hand tinkered and left that in the hinge to Safe pulling it out....
I'll swap wires and see if that works given your comment Clifford about wires being reversed