This JCB 520 telehandler is down for the count. We patch the damaged wiring harness and get it back to work. Send us a postcard: Watch Wes Work P.O. Box 106 Fulton, IL 61252 Send us an email: mail@watchweswork.com
In all fairness I don't think it was possible to see the harness before drilling. He was lucky that those 30A fuses stopped the truck from catching fire. In the 1980s I saw a 40 ton truck burned out by a self tapping screw holding a CB radio.
As a former JCB technician, I can tell you for a fact. What you did for this customer was waaaaaay cheaper than replacing the harness. The harness alone would be around 3500 to 4000. That's not even counting the 32 hours of labor that it calls for. Good job my friend, been there and done that myself.
@@darianzielinsky3284 I’ve been building & repairing harnesses for years - $3-4k is totally reasonable. Manufacturers don’t order a bunch of extra harnesses for every model run. They order enough to cover predicted warranty needs and even that’s not common nowadays. So odds are, if he ordered a replacement harness, and that harness wasn’t currently in production and they had none to sell, that order might come to a shop like mine along with a (sometimes poor) copy of the wiring design schematic. It takes a lot of time to set up a pinboard, collect the appropriate connectors and pins, the proper spec wiring, and so on… some of the one-off harnesses I build cost anywhere from $3k to $15k. The work isn’t easy and it certainly isn’t trivial. I’ve done harnesses for everything from old Czech motorcycles to modern Mercedes to 40-yr-old aircraft to 90’s Fords and Chevys. A machine like the JCB in the video probably didn’t have a very large production run and they probably only ordered 5% extra harnesses to cover production issues and warranty losses.
@@darianzielinsky3284 I guess weeks. in the OC the guy said 32 hours - so a working week plus some exchange. (or 1 day with 4 guys working on it. that's also 32 hr)
I'm sure most people would wonder why a retired Nursing professor would love your videos. I've narrowed it down to 2 of your special gifts--your humor and your problem solving ability. You rock man.
I guarantee when the owner cut out that panel to see the carnage that he caused. It was one of those "Come to Jesus" moments. There were no tears, no anger, no happiness, no emotion at all. Just the quietness of his current existence. Living in the moment....as time slowed to a crawl and his life became but a blip in time, where he questioned his path through life, and the events that got him to where he currently was. LOL Nice fix Wes. You were literally his savior. I can't think of anyone who would have taken that job on. Most all would have noped right the eff out.
I remember vividly when I worked for a limo manufacturer. Since I was fluent in hotrod and restoration electricals, I was assigned to all the hearses, armored cars, and specialty limos. Mercedes S500 and 600 was without a doubt the most difficult. Imagine stretching a built harness 30-50 inches, up to a couple hundred wires a side. To keep the splices from being one massive ball, I would clip 10 or so, twist, solder, shrink wrap. Move 2-3 inches down the harness, another 10 clipped. Incorporate all the equipment we installed (dual divider, rear A/C, TV, stereo and so on) and I could be on a 30" stretch 600 for a week.
Glad you like the wire spoon Wes! I used them in aircraft and found that they made a great tool when working in tight spaces to open up a harness. I about spit my coffee this morning when you showed the tool on the video! Made my day to have it featured, thanks! A couple of tips from experience with using it: Dull the tip so you don't accidentally pierce a wire. Also when possible cut tip to handle so you don't overshoot the end and get into the wires. Allows you to get more aggressive with the cuts. I use mine with a flip open razor knife that has a thicker blade for more stability when cutting. All that said, thanks for another great video!
That's a nifty tool and your first tip makes sense, but the second tip concerns me. Cutting toward the handle would make it less likely to accidentally slice a wire, but more likely to accidentally slice your hand.
@@Rwededyet we injure ourselves all the time, and with a good sharp blade you don't push hard enough to do major damage. It's dull blades that get you into trouble.
You got a link to that tool. If you could possibly post it that would be awesome. If not thanks anyway. I'll keep my eyes open for something like that in the future.
Im calling it! JCB is awesone! Wire is super expensive, so, when JCB decided to spend the extra money to label each circuit, it shows they really care about helping out the end user keeping the machine working and profitable
I wonder if you customers know what an incredible resource they have in you...I have never seen a better all around mechanic. You save your customers tens of thousands of dollars and do stuff the factory wouldn't do.
Shoot, Wes does stuff any average mechanic wouldn't to. Not can't do - won't do. Seems if you can't buy the part easily, get to the part easily and do it without interupting their next break they don't want to know about it. Yep, Wes is so far above average the word shouldn't exist in his solar system.
Reminds me of a strory from way back. In Australia, in the eighties, GM supplied the Police cars and the tech's drilled the normal mounting holes for the radios in a large number of cars (IIRC, it was 500) at the same time in the passenger footwell area. Unfortunately, they were the first batch of cars with electronic engine management, these ECUs' needed to be installed in a cool, dry area that was out of the way - like on the other side of the panels being drilled for the radios... Even more unfortunately, they were being done as batches and by the time they realised why the cars wouldn't start they'd gone through a number of ECUs.
Great job. I learned three new things. That there is a tool for cutting the wrap off a loom, damage free. That machinists points can be used to hold a cab up and, I especially like the trick with the socket and tape. I never would have thought of that. I usually just cut the length of tape that I think I need and then try to wind it around the wire without getting it twisted or stuck to something I don't want it to. All that and story time too. What a deal!
Eric O is actually the first one ive ever seen do the trick with the tape...and ive been doing harness repair on military and commercial vehicles for 20 years. Nice work Wes. Thx for sharing!
that harness repair went exceptionally well Id say. Having numbers to match up was a bonus but getting it neat and manageable to where it would go back in its space is a whole other project in itself! Another job well done Sir!
Splicing the wires back together like you did was the only workable solution. Replacing the harness would've been waaaaay more time and labor and therefore $$$. I bet he thinks thrice before "fixing" it again. Bad design by JCB with the foot panel, too easy to scuff it loose to begin with.
that harness alone would be very expensive to buy as jcb really ride you for the older machine parts .......thats if they even still make it ...........have a 1993 jcb 412 farm master here that needed a loom ......ended up having one made locally as the jcb one was going to cost more than the machine was worth ............
I worked for a Toyota dealer as a team leader for many years. A customer brought a brand new Sienna van in with lean codes and a vacuum leak at the booster. He decided to install his own trailer hitch and brake controller instead of having the dealer do it. He had tried to run the brake controller feed wire through the firewall and drilled a 3/8 hole through the firewall and right into the back of the booster. Needless to say warranty did NOT cover that repair. Great job Wes, never a dull moment on your channel.
This brought back many traumatic memories for me Wes. Once, I had to install a new aftermarket third seat in the front of a brand new MB Sprinter van, it came with no fitting instructions. It was a matter of aligning it with the existing seats and going from there. These vans have a huge, one piece moulded rubber mat that goes under the front seats, under the dash and side heel plates, so not a trivial task to remove. These aftermarket seats bolt through the floor pan and have large backing plates that fit up from underneath to sandwich the floor panel. Typical process is to dril your clearance hole through the floor mat or carpet/ insulation with a hole saw (a hole saw run backwards cuts through carpet really well and doesn't wad up the carpet) and then enlarge the hole saw pilot hole in the floor pan to through bolt size. I called the local MB dealer and asked if there was anything under the thick, one piece rubber and insulation floor mats in that area I should be aware of and they emphatically said nothing to worry about. So, off I go with the 25mm holesaw to punch some holes through the rubber floor mat and insulation for the bolts and spacers (to allow for the thickness of floor mat and insulation). No problems there, all good. Then I go to drill the 14mm diameter holes through the floor for the mounting bolts. Get through what I thought was the floor panel, then a huge sizzle pop. I knew what I'd done just from the sound. Turns out, there was a huge depressed channel stamped into the floor pan of the van, with a thick sheet metal cover that screws over it to provide a wiring loom run and the thick plate covers that and provides a nice flat floor for the cab. Anyway, I spent the next day doing exactly what you have done here, except with a multitude of wire sizes. Fortunately, the MB loom was colour coded, unlike your harness here. If I'd had the seat positiooned 25mm further forward, I would've missed the harness completely. We started carrying a stock of those large amperage fusible links like the ones on the JCB after that event....
What was great, was seeing someone actually use the proper harness fabric tape and split loom to do a fix like this, so often people just use electrical tape, which is terrible stuff and degrades to a slimy mess especially around oils.
I have a long history with JCB and I have to say that they usually try to think ahead when they design their machines. They are not the worst machines to repair. Thanks for the video.
This reminds me of a job I did a few years ago. I was working on a Gradall machine. It to was hauled to me and it was dead. It's big boom was in the way of the repair that was needed and with no power to manipulate the boom, the owner thought it was too big of a job for himself so he brought it to me. He needed the machine back pretty bad as he's an oilfield lease contractor and it was during the spring break up season so he was missing out on a whole lot of hi-paying jobs. That said, he also brought me 15 - $100 dollar bills and told me that if I needed more cash or parts to just keep track of my time and parts. He said that if he got the machine back within a week he'd be happy and still ahead of the game. He was in for a nice surprise! First, a little about me: Well, me being a farm raised Alberta boy, and with my 1st job being a hard run floor hand then derrick hand in the oil patch, well that gave me a different quicker and dare I say a more intelligent way of looking at work in general. If you worked The Patch in the '80s you worked hard, kept busy or you got barked at if you weren't busy doing something. In the Alberta Oil Patch I truly learned what, "GETERDONE" meant! After he left I went and fetched my ratty old Porta Power (I'll call it PP) unit I got at an auction sale and I also gathered up a pail full of various hydraulic fittings and some short lines and a clean empty oil drum. I plumbed the old Porta Power up to the boom's fittings and powered up the PP and as you know the PP is one heck of a powerful though small unit. So, with the boom's hydraulics now isolated and connected to outside hydraulic power enabled me to slowly lift the boom up and out of the way of the repair area. Connecting the boom took me 3 hours. Doing the repair took me 2 hours. Lowering the boom, disconnecting my fittings and making sure all was well took another 2 hours for a total of 7 hours. In my little world, $1500 dollars does not equate 7 hours work. By God no one's worth that much, no one!! I work alone, prefer it but I'd work with you any time because you're a good man, just like me!
I’m an electrician, and I have what I call a “ Fox and Hound”. It’s used for low voltage tracing. Also called a toner. You can connect it to a wire at the beginning, say the fuse box, and then identify that exact wire where it is cut, or in a bundle of wires. I use it a lot for tracing circuits. Just a thought. Love your content! Best wishes Dan
Right. I have part of that system I got in a bunch of stuff from a storage locker. I have the receiver probe but not the tone generator unit. It will still detect live wiring inside of walls, so there’s that. Made by Fluke.
Not sure how it would help in the situation Wes faced. You describe how it would help from (say) the fuse box to where the wires are cut - but to identify each wire on the other side of the cut, you'd need to have a wiring diagram - to identify where the other end of the wire goes - and then put the tone generator on that end of the wire - to then be able to probe bunch of cut wires to find the one carrying the tone. They are very useful tools when tracing functional (uncut) wires - but once a wire is cut - you still need to trace it from both ends.
When I was a teen in central Nebraska, I worked part time for a farmer. One day we were in his barn and he decided to get rid of a barn swallow that had taken up residence. He took out his 22 rifle and shot the bird and the lights went out. Turns out, the bullet went through the wood siding and severed the overhead line feeding the barn!
Sure, the only non-rusty thing you have ever gotten to work on and you are working on parts that probably would not rust, corrode or even get dirty. lol *NEVER* try to anticipate the comments from the "experts." Their lack of intelligence knows, no bounds. lol If it worked and will last, it was the proper repair! Saving the customer hundreds or thousands of dollars is just a bonus! Keep up the good work! BTW: I would have done the same thing to repair it but I am one of those RU-vid "experts" so take my opinion how ever you desire. lol
It really is incredible. Sometimes I even go out of my way to do something that I think will get all the comments, and it turns out to be something else. Who knows...
Repairing the harness WAS the correct repair. I would like to know where he got those crimpers from. When I build a harness, I do quite a bit of splicing and tapping.
I had to do a rat chewed harness repair under the hood of a pretty clean 1994 b4000 this week. Trying to track down a good harness isnt an option and the labor to replace would of scrapped this nice truck. A couple hrs of my time and a minimal amount of parts to splice it together got the gent down the road and saved his valued truck.
@@markpeterson5479 Oh the owner is likely to be happy that Wes was able to repair the wiring harness but the bill for the transport truck, the repair bill and knowing he cause the problem well there will be some tears. Oh well glad to see it back functional again. OH yeah and to have to weld the opening up just another part of the repair
@@mikeske9777 I'll bet the bill wasn't too awful bad...~$500.00? Probably the stealership would've charged a helluva lot more for the same method of repair.
I feel for the guy who drilled into the harness. I had a similar disaster, I was putting my car on jack stands when the one in front fell over, and the leg of the stand went right through the oil pan. Oil went everywhere, and I was totally screwed. I had to have the car towed to my mechanic who then had to drop the front subframe to get the pan off. The disaster cost me almost $700 (with towing) just because I wanted to drop off the old tires instead of bringing the whole car to get new ones.
Where the heck were the jack stands that it went through the oil pan? Usually the frame rails are nice and off to the side. Not that I’m doubting you did it, just damn.
@@andyruse4670 - underneath the sub frame in front of the front wheels. I normally use the pinch weld, but this same car has fallen off the jacks there before.
Splicing was the right decision, I work at an Excavator manufacturer and the first thing that goes on the rotating frame is the wiring harness. The harness is pulled through grommeted holes as components are added.
A great fix. It reminds me of the time I drilled a hole in the floor of a Dodge van to mount a plywood floor. Drilled right into the gas tank. The tip about wrapping tape around a socket was worth its weight in gold. Thanks for a great video.
Nice work. I had to do the very same jobs numerous times during my stint in the navy. There was always some deck monkey drilling, welding, grinding or cutting through something somewhere and wouldn't ya know, they'd usually find wiring for my systems located almost everywhere throughout the ship. So I know the feeling intimately. Of note: I believe the military innovated that type of numbering scheme for wiring and classed it out as a Mil-Spec because during battles, the repair crew can't be tracing down broken wires. They gotta get fixed pronto and on the spot.
I love wiring repair jobs. They aren’t covered my warranty. An no matter how much labor you charge its 100% cheaper than paying for a new harness and the labor to replace a whole harness
Good job, Wes! I have to work on a Switzerland made rockcrusher at a quarry. 100s of wires all black, unlabeled. I have some not very detailed schematics for it. Being that it is this huge rock crusher on tracks it shakes big time and breaks wires. The control panel has rubber mounts and I packed the inside with foam. I always cringe when they call.
You would never be able to get the old wiring harness out with the machine not running, you couldn't even get to the bolt on the far side of the cab. That and 6 months delivery and mega $$ to get a new harness. Job well done Wes! That truck and trailer hauling the Telehandler is the Bees Knees!
I felt your pain. I drilled a "simple" hole in a sheetrock wall once to mount a shelf anchor. Went dead center into a water supply line, where there should not have been any piping. Everyone has to do this at least once to be able to call themselves a professional. Ha!
Been there, done that. The line was run along the top edge of wallboard behind the wallboard. There's nothing along that whole side of the building, inside or outside, that needed a water line.
What a nice machine. Looked fairly new and well maintained. Also the rig that collected it was a neat unit. Your patience and problem solving never ceases to amaze me. Great content as always! Best wishes from the UK 🇬🇧
J C Bamford, they've been around a while, I think he came up with the back-hoe (US English)("JCB" UK English) concept. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joseph_Bamford
Oh snap...I learned something new. I know the tape and socket trick but, I haven't ever thought of using a cordless ratchet to spool it up. Nice professional repair! Thanks for the video.
Ah! that explains the ear-shattering "F@&K ME" I heard blowing with the wind and leaves over here in NJ the other day. I wish I could say I've never done something as silly but I have. Great Video as always.
I work on heavy and farm equipment, I can't stand customer cars and trucks so basically only do my own. Somedays if you didn't have a sense of humor you'd quit with some of the stuff we have to fix. In the words of the great AVE channel, A design engineers the only person that would climb over a mountain of virgins to screw one mechanic ! Thats one of the truer statements I've heard working on this stuff they design . L.O.L.
Fascinating seeing how you did that. I learned about two tools I had never even heard of - machinist jacks and the emu oil jack thing. The trick of winding tape round a socket is priceless.
A main use for machinist jacks' is to provide support for a work piece that sticks a good bit out of the jaws of a vice on a mill or something of the sort. They can really be as simple or as complex as you are willing to make or buy them
The tape around the socket has been around a long time (i first saw it back in the late 70's while at a 1/4 mile track with my dad racing) and as far as i know the only place on RU-vid that has that trick/tip is South main auto and that was a few years ago.
This video has taught me the value of "don't just shove a drill bit in there if you don't know what is underneath". For all we know, this video just saved me money down the line!
A huge Thank You for that tape on the 9mm socket trick. I worked for 40 years in the electrical trade and never saw that done. I have put tape on a short piece of copper tubing to wrap a wire bundle as you did, however. Your trick is easier and faster. Well done, sir. Well done.👍 "Always learn one new thing every day."
How nice to see a British product in the USA. JCB have a very good name here in the UK and have had for many decades. Their main factory is about 50 miles from where I live, about in the middle of England. Perkins Engines' main factory is also in England but further afield. I hope the JCB gives its owner many years of good service. Thanks for yet another very interesting video.
Yes sir and it also keeps the tape from sticking to itself when you try to pull off a single piece, especially a longer piece. That one demonstration made the whole video well worth watching just for that education. Sure there are plenty of comments people make and some are not so good and some are really clever. Guess we all have, something to learn, make things interesting.
Hi Wes the crying stopped when you told the owner you fired it back up. Patience and perseverance are qualities that make for good mechanics. Keep up the good work.
Heres a good story for you, we had a Caterham turn up at work (small British 2 seater kit car). Whereby the customer complaint was that it would not rev past 5700rpm. After concluding it was an interreference issue being caused by the camshaft sensor. A bit of digging from the customer revealed that he'd tried to fit a new shift light through the dash, and promptly drilled right through the entire car loom. In the end it was diagnosed that the misfire was caused by the ECM had lost its permanent 12v feed (these ECU's have a ignition 12v and a permanent 12v, the latter being for keep alive and interference reduction, causing all sorts of interference issues. Had costed him 1800 dollars, one expensive shift light!
I saw the exact same thing happen on a corporate jet by an interior installer. He drilled into a bundle about the size of your leg with a lot of 22 and 24 gauge wires with a 6 inch long #30 drill bit. Very expensive.
Your patience was very high on that job, great work, impressive how tidy the loom is after 👌👍. Very clever to jack up the cab, again excellent work Wes. Thanks for sharing and stay safe all.
I think those wire labels saved about 5 hours of mind numbing sweat. The fact you could jack it enough without removing the other nut, say getting another crane, disconnecting the feed pipes to lift the boom, while laying under the boom, having the boom drop unexpectedly just allowing enough time to escape by the skin of your teeth, thinking, "I should have stayed in cnc school". No joke Wes, I feel ya'll performed admirally.
If they had brought this to a JCB dealer it would have cost them several thousand dollars and they wouldn’t have seen the machine until 2022. Good work Wes.
i worked on a volvo that the driver had shot thru the left floor board near the foot rest at the clutch pedal and it had gotten the harness and bounced around under the truck and cut the frame harness running back, fun fun times finding that, looked to be a 45 acp when i found it, good reason it had a crap load of weird codes. had a very experienced tech (30 plus years) installing chain boxes left frame rail behind cab, 500 new trucks, he drilled 50 abs harnesses looked close to what you repaired here, 5/8 reamer damage was a bit more destructive tho.
Another great video, I am sure Mortske is going love this one, he is a huge fan. Life is full of boring tedious jobs. Or as confucius said "Before enlightenment there is chopping wood and carrying water after enlightenment there is chopping wood and carrying wood"
Reminds me of when I worked for a Mack Volvo dealer, a Volvo with an Eaton auto shift came in with 3,500ish miles stuck in gear. The company that owned the truck moved the fire extinguisher from between the seats to next to the driver's door, ran the self tapping screws directly into the transmission shift wire harness
I had a guy with a tudnra where the truck had every light on the dash, no communication, and the blower didn't work. Come to find out he tried to install his own blower motor and didn't say anything about that's when all the lights came on. CAN network was shorted and eventually found (after hours of testing) that the can lines that run to the ac amplifier (right next to blower) had a screw drilled through the harness, it was one of the screws for the blower motor. And guess what? The blower still didn't work because the fuse was blown and the blower fuse is part of the main fuse built into the fuse box on that truck. Over a grand later it was all fine.
When they were building houses at the end of my street (a few decades ago), the builders dug up a copper phone cable that ran next to the street. It had maybe 600 pairs in it... Then a year after that, someone dug it up AGAIN. I suspect they were digging to run water or sewer lines to the new homes and were careless. (The water and sewer mains ran under the street). I did not envy the technicians who worked to reconnect the pairs correctly. After the second time a contractor dug it up, the phone company dug up the entire length of cable and put a new cable down that was encased in a very heavy metal pipe.
Drilled right thru a vital wiring harness... “I hate it when I do this”... Well, the gentleman brought the problem to the precise person I would have brought it to for repair... We “is” the man when it come to wire splicing/repair... Great video Wes, Thank you sir.
I had a Daf DB250 bus with an ALX400 body on it. That had a 95 wire loom, all black wires with numbers at each plug no numbers in between. The inner rear tyre blow out & took the loom out clean in half. Took me almost 40 hours to find all the wires one end & marry them up with the rear end in the wheel arch. The wiring harness was obsolete & the vehicle was "to good to be scrap". I recently found your channel & really enjoy your content. The recent bin truck video brought me, all the bin trucks I've looked at have all picked up a mattress with the prop-shaft over landfill & taken out all the air pipes & wiring. The first thing I used to do was look into the body from behind the drivers cab if I could see the all the way to the rear. It was a good day if I could only see a mental plate it was a bad day. Keep up the great content
After the logical approach you took, and care, how could you ever doubt you wouldn't get the job done? I knew from clicking on this video that the end would be a good one.
Well Wes, Thanks for bring back old memories of after action repairs on our choppers. mil spec requires staggered crimping. wounds like this one would mean opening up the wire bundle as far as possible in both direction and use filler wires, (that we would number label). A real fun job!
In the days before insulation displacement connectors (scotchloks, 710 modules, etc), the old time splicers had a tool that spun together each wire in a tight wrap. Then, they would slide a wax impregnated cloth sleeve over each connection. They'd stagger them but the splices were complicated and huge sometimes. Plus, they had to tone (or "buzz") each pair. Even now when we do a buzz,, large cables can take a week of 24/7 work to splice.
In my younger days my brother had an '89 Mustang GT and we installed a ridiculous stereo system in it. We had to run one gauge wire from the battery back to run the amps. I was putting the sill plate back after running the wire and put one of the screws right through the one gauge and fried an 1150 watt Earthquake amp. That hurt, but I learned. Thanks again for a great video that brought back some fun memories!
Enjoyed that one Wes, thank-you. As I always say, its a bad day that you don't learn something and that trick with the tape on a small socket is a humdinger!
I worked for a company as a cable machine operator. They wanted to save money on ribbon for their printer and reduce the number of stamps. This shows just how important numbers along the wires are. Nice repair job. This would pass inspection in a cable plant for Class two, which is industrial. Military would require something a bit more, but it is quite a bit better then basic commercial. Thumbs up. Edit - I think the only thing you could have done differently is not bundled everything back up until you tested all the circuits, but that is it. Good butt splices, heat shrink and fabric tape wrap, along with the abrasion covering, which is a bit of overkill, but shows professionalism.
I’ve reterminated a few 30 conductor broadcast camera cables before… one time while covering a hockey game, someone walked over the cable whilst wearing sharpened hockey skates! that’s always a fun time! Nice work Wes!!
I don’t want to discount the fantastic job you did on the harness repair. But that truck driver clearly has loaded that before and he’s pretty darn good at it. Haha! Thanks for sharing stories while you worked in the harness. Much appreciated!
Wes, if I were closer, you’d be my mechanic. I love your never ending tool surprises that you pull out…those machinists jacks…awesome! Loved the class act repair sir. And no, my guess is they will complain you didn’t use bondo before you painted 😂
That tape roll trick is handier than a pocket on a t-shirt. Definitely worth the price of admission. I like the story hour too. Back in the Air Force C-130 days, we always started them with, “There we were, flying along. Fat, dumb and happy, when all of a sudden…”.
My church has 3 remote switch panels for the sanctuary lighting. Each has a dozen switches (all momentary, some NO, some NC -- controlling motorized dimmers and contactors). All the interconnect wires are red. No circuit numbers anywhere. Lots of fun troubleshooting when one of the switches stops working.
