[holross]

We recently moved the entire wiring harness going through the cargo area of our midroof 2019 transit 250 into the wall channel. We basically just yanked all the clips down, taped around all the connection areas thoroughly so they could fit through the channel, then fed them through to their respective places and reconnected everything.

We didn't think to tape off or pad the edges of the metal before pulling the harness through the metal enclosure. There's some sharp edges in there, and there was moments where we had to tug it through.

As someone who doesn't know much about electric and doesn't want our car to explode, I have two questions:

1) If any of the wires are nicked, what would likely happen? I know it's bad either way, but it will help my anxiety if I know it will most likely blow a fuse or stop the function of whatever it's powering.
2) Is there a way for us to test each of the wires for shorts?
3) If there's no way for ME to test the safety of these wires, who could? I'm concerned that a mechanic wouldn't exactly know what I'm asking for and I don't know where to start getting the special expertise we would need.

All of this is just pre-emptive, I have no reason to believe anything is wrong with the wire harness except the nervousness after realizing there were sharp edges and some tugging going on to get the wires through.

If I could redo all of this I would do it differently, but we're here now, so any advice appreciated on what you'd do to ensure safety!

Thanks.

 

[ranxerox]

It will most likely just blow fuses on the BCM, The brains for the whole van.
There is another guy who here did something similar and his van has not ran for the last two months.

 

[AzB]

I'm all about using every little bit of space in the van, but I reconsidered moving the wire harness into the wall as it seems to require quite a bit of effort for very little gain. The wires are hidden behind my cabinets and don't reduce the storeage by much at all. And each section of cabinets (there are three sections, imaginatively called fore, middle, and aft) is removeable relatively easily if I should need to access the wiring.

I also noticed the sharp edges by cutiing my hand several times. I would at the very least, wrap the wires in cotton tape or thick shrink tube to prevent cuts.

 

[Tijoe]

Generically in a harness there can be 4 types of wires in different gauge sizes to handle the current passing through them.
1. Black and green or black/green - grounds,
2. 12V+ power Colors can vary
3. CAN twisted pair wires.
4. Low voltage signal wires. (Sensors, Cameras, switches actuators...)

• If you nick the 12V+ wire and it make contact with the chassis/metal paneling, then you will most likely blow a fuse. If the wire makes permanent contact with metal then there is a remote possibility that the wire may head up and burn through the insulation.
• If you nick a CAN twisted pair wire, you may get signal interference if it contacts a ground point/chassis metal.
• - Low voltage signal wires may be grounded out and not transmit the signal, leading to some sort of device fault.

This being written, if I recall correctly the main upper harness is home to the back-up camera, antenna wire, ceiling lights, perhaps the air-curtain sensors if you have them, upper center tail/braking light, sliding door closed switch. (No CAN wires)
(nothing major I believe.)

 

[orton]

The Ford wireway can be removed and the wiring can be moved up the wall a few inches. Restricting moving the loom up the wall is the wiring at the back doors. The wiring can be rerouted to provide some slack to move the loom up the wall. I replaced the large Ford wireway with a 1 1/2" square Panduit wireway. Kept loom outside the wall but moved it up the wall so Panduit was inside my upper cabinets.

Wire Duct | Orton Travel Transit (ortontransit.info)

 

[Boondox]

At the very least the wiring should be in a protective plastic loom or weave. No way I would ever consider having wires rubbing over all the sharp corners. And you are thinking of sealing them in with no protection where it would take major tearing up to get to. IMO a very, very bad idea.

I'm leaving mine where they are and while I will make a more attractive raceway it will be easy to remove for future repairs.