Replacing Torn Door Wiring Boot

[Thawk97]

As my GTS has aged, with many door openings and closings, the rubber boot that runs from the car body to the door slowly started tearing open. Frankly, the boot itself was designed just a little too short, and for many cars, the ribs tend to catch on the gill every time the door opens. This leads to tearing. For this How-To, I'll be showing how to replace the driver's side (as that's the one which takes the most abuse). This is also helpful for people who don't care about the boot, but are looking for a "how to" on unplugging the door wiring harness from the rest of the car and getting it outside the car body.

9537


Step 1 - find a donor harness then DISCONNECT YOUR BATTERY.
Unfortunately, you cannot buy the boot separately. I found a full door wiring harness from a junk car and stole the boot off that one to swap mine out. In doing so, I noticed that the wiring harness changed at some point in the GTS production (I have an early '96 - I'm not certain what year my donor boot came from).

Step 2 - Remove the plug.
The boot is far too small to remove without taking the plug off the end. My donor plug was a 20 pin plug and I later discovered my car had only an 18 pin plug. I don't know when the change happened, but both the plug size and the wire colors were different between my car and the donor harness. Of course it didn't matter, but that might be important to know if some people are thinking of swapping our a harness in it's entirety.
95289529

[Thawk97]

The plug itself is very easy to disassemble - for the 20 pin version I had (donor), there was a red center piece that came out after prying the sides up a bit. In the pic below, it's halfway out.
9530

On the 18 pin version from my car, there was a white slide that came off the performed basically the same function. Again - halfway out:
9531

Once you've exposed the plugs by removing the center guard piece, I found a bobby pin with the end clipped off to be the most helpful tool. Each plug has a little tab toward the center which needs to be pried back a bit and the individual receiver can be pulled out.
9532

Here all but one wire have been removed -
9533

[Thawk97]

STEP 3 - Remove other obstacles and secure the wires - then pull off the boot.
On the donor harness I got, there was a foam roll (circled) several inches up from the boot which I believe would have secured in the inner hole on the body of the car (more on that later). This had to be removed. I also had to secure some of the wire wrapping so it didn't get bunched up as I tried to pull the boot off (it's a tight fit).

9534

9535

Once you have a clean path off, just gently pull the boot off. Go slow over the chunkier bits (especially the end with all the metal receivers) so as not to tear it.

9536

[Thawk97]

STEP 4 - Prep the car!
DISCONNECT THE BATTERY. I know I included that in step 1, but this is your reminder - don't forget. You're messing with a full set of connectors and you DO NOT want to short something out.

Next, I found it easiest to remove the lower interior dash panel (at your knees) on the drivers side. This will give you a bit more access as you get the plug outside the cabin. It's very simple - remove the fuse cover, 2 screws in the door jamb and 4 or 5 screws on the face.

Additionally, remove the gill to get access to the boot - (PAY ATTENTION TO SPACERS BEHIND SCREWS).
9538

STEP 5 - Get that wire out!
Pulling the wire outside the car isn't terribly difficult, but it is a fairly tight area to work in. For starters, you're going to have to get your head in the drivers footwell. You'll be able to see the green plug toward the center front area under the dash. There is a clip to hold the plug in place, though mine had broken itself off that clip. You can see the 3 cables from pedal adjustment behind the plug as location reference.
9539

Unfortunately I don't have pictures for how to unplug the green plug but again it was different from the 20 pin version (my donor) to the 18 pin version on my car. On the 20 pin with the red, it looks like you pull rearward on a red tab at the clip to unlock it and then it can be unplugged (look at some of the earlier pics of the plug with red above). For the 18 pin version, there was a simple tab that had to be pried over a bump with a small screwdriver. Even when released, you're fighting a fair amount of friction so it took me some patient prying to get it unplugged. Go slow, and don't break anything.

Once you've unplugged it, you can slowly start working the wire out. The wire (at least on my car) wasn't tied or strapped to anything else, but it doesn't have a lot of room to move. Additionally, it has to get through 2 holes - for this, we'll call them the inner hole and outer hole. The outer hole is the one you're looking at from outside the car - the wiring boot fits into the outer hole and it's a sort of oval. The inner hole is a circle and it's inside the car - there's around a 1 inch space between the inner & outer holes.

The inner hole is circled here (removing that dash panel allows you to see this hole up next to the fuse block). My harness didn't have it, but the foam wrapping I mentioned above on my donor harness, I suspect that fits in or around the inner hole.
9541

If you haven't yet, use a small screwdriver to pry the wiring boot out of the outer hole and you should be able to use your right hand under the dash to somewhat guide the plug while using your left hand outside the car to gently pull the wire out. Once you get past a few obstacles, you'll be able to see the plug at the inner hole and you can reach up with fingers to guide it through.

[Thawk97]

STEP 6 - DRAW A DIAGRAM!!!!!
You are not going to remember where 18-20 wires go. I took pictures of both sides of my plug and drew a diagram of the wiring pattern.

TIP: On the backside of the plug, each square has a number by the hole - write these on your diagram so you don't get the orientation backwards. You'd be surprised how easy it is to get it rotated in your head. I actually had 2 diagrams since I initially drew one for the 20 pin donor and then had to redraw a different one once I got mine out of the car and saw that it was different. The one below is from my 20 pin donor (so it won't match the pics of the plug):
9542 9543 9544

[Thawk97]

STEP 7 - Remove the plug.
Same process you followed from #2 on the donor harness.

STEP 8 - Remove obstacles and secure the wires.
Again - same as before. Take off the foam roll if you have it, and secure and loose wire wrap so it doesn't bunch up on you.

STEP 9 - Remove torn boot.
Again - covered above, go slowly so as not to damage or pull to hard on wires (wires in this part of the door are known to break because of the hinge - don't accidentally damage them trying to fix the boot).

STEP 10 - Install your fresh boot!
I found it almost impossible to put the boot on the wires without wrapping the ends in electrical tape first - they kept getting caught on the ribs of the boot or getting caught on one another. Temporarily wrap them in as streamlined a pattern as possible and go slowly sliding your new boot over them. Remove the tape right away and you shouldn't have made them sticky or anything

9545 9546

STEP 11 - Finish the outside stuff.
Slide your boot up into position by the door. Again, don't pull the wires too hard. Also, if you had the foam roll, put that back in place. Re-install the wires into your plug by closely following your diagram (remember how you took the time to draw that - feeling pretty good about life right now aren't you?). Don't forget to reinstall the guard (whether yours is the white slider like mine was - 18 pin style - or red 20 pin type)

9550

[Thawk97]

STEP 12 - Feed the wire back in.
Hopefully you paid some attention to the routing of the wire when you pulled it out - this wire set doesn't have a ton of slack so you can't take the easiest most round-about way to get back to the plug. Mine had to feed back through some tight spaces. Again, having the lower dash piece off helps with this as you can see it come through the inner hole and at least start it in the right direction. Go slow, be patient, and don't yank on stuff. Once it's back in there, plug it in and stop.

STEP 13 - TEST
You've just unplugged everything from your door wire by wire - before you button everything back up, reconnect the battery and test to make sure you didn't screw it up. Try the windows, stereo, etc.

STEP 14 - Button it up
Now that you verified everything is working, you should feel especially proud you were clever enough to draw a diagram and follow it! Go ahead and push the boot back into the outer hole and the door hole so it's all sealed and you should be able to put everything back together again.

Hopefully you remember where the spacers went on your door gill - put that back on, as well as your lower dash piece.

STEP 15 - Admire your NOT torn door wiring boot!
9552

9551

Last tip - 303 Aerospace Protectant is great stuff for helping to protect these rubber pieces from breaking down over time. It will help them maintain flexibility so as to tear less easily. The pic above shows my "new" donor one having been treated with it and I will continue to use it. 303 doesn't contain a lot of the long term harmful stuff other products like Armor All have. Just google it and you'll find it on amazon - I think some auto parts places have even started to carry it.

[Thawk97]

Some of my pictures seem to be disappearing - not sure what that's about. I'll have to look into it later.