This article is directed towards a Chrysler Minivan that I had in the shop the other day with a strange problem that I have seen a few times before so I wanted to inform others about this problem. The problem starts from a simple issue you would never expect to lead to this. Take a look at the cut open wire harness below.
Close up picture of the corroded fuel injection wire harness on a Chrysler Town & Country van
Here you can see that there is obvious battery acid corrosion that deteriorated the insulation of the wiring. Even though at this point you may not know what this wire harness is for you can tell that this would cause an obvious problem, no matter what it’s for, huh?
The picture you’re looking at above is the main wire harness for the fuel injectors. The injectors are supplied battery positive through a common wire and they’re energized by a ground control through the PCM (powertrain control module). These wires are shorting out on the ground control side only because if it shorted on the power side the vehicle would just not run, would blow a fuse or burn up a fusible link. That would actually be easier to diagnosis because the picture of the wire harness above actually caused an intermittent problem for years before it actually failed to the point were the customer had to tow the vehicle in to my shop.
Battery Corrosion
On theses Chrysler vehicles it’s common to see this type of battery corrosion at the positive and negative battery terminals and cables. The way the cables are sealed you usually will not see the corrosion unless you cut open the battery cable. The battery acid eats at the wires like cancer and will follow all the way down through the harness. Now a year earlier with this same customer we had an alternator and battery failure and I found this same corrosion in their battery cables. I had fabricated new positive and negative cables, replaced the battery and alternator and though nothing else of it once they started having the misfire issues caused by this fuel injection wire harness. I believe that the neglected battery cables caused the corrosion to grow down the harness. Keep in mind that old battery’s that are starting to sulfate will cause this also so keep a good battery in your vehicle and keep the terminals clean. You can use either baking soda & water to clean the acid or buy a special cleaner from the auto parts store. Once your done cleaning the battery parts make sure to seal them with either dielectric grease or a battery terminal sealant that comes in an aerosol can.
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- Close up picture of the corroded fuel injection wire harness on a Chrysler Town & Country van
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- Fouled sparkplugs from the shorted wire harness
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- You can see here that to remove the fuel injection wire harness you must take off the upper intake plenum
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- Fuel injection wire harness before I removed it from the vehicle
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- Another close up picture of the corroded fuel injection wire harness on a Chrysler Town & Country van also showing the connector
I have a question;
My 2006 Chrysler Town & Country Touring Mini Van is having a Cylinder 4 Misfire issue.
I’ve been told it’s probably a bad spark plug at auto zone so I bought 4 spark plugs and replaced them..still misfire…went to an auto shop who said it was a bad fuel injector so we paid to replace that part and now we still have this misfire issue and can’t get it to pass inspection.
The guy at the auto shop said he’d have to take apart the whole damn engine and i’d have to pay upwards of $300+ just for labor to do this in order to find out what the problem is so I can pass inspection, what am I suppose to do? Just give them thousands and hope my issue is solved?
He thinks it’s an open “gasket” or something and to check he’d have to take apart the whole engine to see why the Cylinder is misfiring.
What are my options?
Just make sure you take it to someone that will properly diagnosis the problem the first time. Replacing sparkplugs and fuel injectors without knowing if that’s the problem or not is wasting your money. There are ways to properly diagnosis the problem without a guess.
Hi my 2012 with 111,000 miles on the clock, has a misfire under load but only when engine is warmed up,cold no problem, added upper cylinder lube which really made a difference, major improvement. But still intermittent hiccup under load.
Misfire under load usually indicates a failure in the secondary ignition system, try changing ignition wires and spark plugs, if it’s a 3.0L then change the distributor cap and rotor also. Other models are distributor less ignition systems.
Hey where can I find this harness wiring for cheap? Help please
Cesar,
Are you referring to the injector wire harness? I bought it directly from Chrysler.