Glad you got it all fixed up, I'm gonna have to get this taken care of next time my car is over at your place for an install!

 

Seems to be a pretty common occurance.

On the other hand I bought my EVO with a flood title and I've checked all the connections on the harness and they are all as right as rain.

I sealed up mine anyway just in case. It seems like the damaged is caused while the car is operating.

 

You're begging for another failure with those crimp connectors. Solder those wires!

 

I was not about to solder every last wire w/o sticking them all together and testing. Furthermore, It's so cold out my soldering iron will not hardly get hot enough to melt the flux. I'll be soldering them when it gets warm enough (um....as stated in original post )

 

I don't see a screwdriver pointing to any seal in the pics.

 

FWIW, look at the Evo wiring harness...you won't see many soldered connections in there. Leave the crimp connectors, but if possible, heat shrink them down so there isn't vibration at the crimps. Soldered connections will vibrate and crack over time.

Dave

 

I really hope you go back and solder all of those.

 

You can't really compare an OEM machine made harness (many times with vibration and liquid resistant connectors) to a butt connector. Over 10 years working in car audio, I've seen countless crimp connectors fail, and maybe 2 cold solder joints.

 

Fair enough, but you also can't assume that everyone can solder like a pro. My background is in rally cars, and those cars get vibrated around soo much that soldered connections aren't the way to go. I use crimp connectors that have the heat shrink on them which spreads the stress on the connection out and I've yet to have one of those fail. I've seen other rally cars have wiring issues, and many of those come back to cracked or partially cracked solder connections.

FWIW, only ~1/2 of those are the heat shrink kind of connectors used in the OP's pics.

Dave

 

Im a certified toyota tech. I hate to tell everyone that the same stuff happens to all makes of cars. If you were to see all the TSBs out on newer toyotas you wouldnt think that they are the "best car made today"

Nissans are even worse I cant tell you how many recalls and problems people complain about with them. I bought my sentra brand new as a beater so I dont have to drive my EVO in the winter and hog it all up. I had a IPDM take a dump in less then 2K mi. and a window bind and break inside the door at 5K.

I guess what Im getting at is that its a15K car with a 15K powertrain. Even 40+ K cars that are top rated still have issues cause they are made by machines that made by us- Humans.

 

Butane soldering torch is the only way to go.....problem solved

 

It doesn't solve the problem of my fingers freezing off or my knees aching like a **** on the cold-*** garage floor. Bring your torch over and solder it for me if you're so confident

I used those heat-shrink crimp connectors on about half the harness, that's all I had on hand. I've found them to go the distance. ...should I say it again? I'll probably re-do it this spring..

I dare someone else to tell me that I had better solder those connections.....seriously wtf! If you wanna post that, come and help me do it....if not, kthxbye, no comments needed. I posted this thread to spread information about this problem, not get berated or even open a damn discussion on soldering vs crimping, there is no contest that soldering is the way to go.

 

This is a pretty common problem, myself and at least 3 others near me that I know with Evo's have had to do this already. It seems that in Mitsubishi's almighty wisdom they put the windshield vent drain tube right over top of the rubber boot that the harness comes in through.

 

I actually had this grommet pop out when running some wires so i decided to address this issue early. From what i could tell there is definitely an opening where water could sneak in. I ran silicone around the entire grommet, around the stock wiring harness and around the wires i ran through it. I checked my sunroof drain and it definitely was no where near the grommet so i dont suspect i would contribute to the problem but if water got past the well cover i could see it wreaking havok.

 

Bump! Check this NOW if you haven't already.