Repairing remainder of wiring bundle and preparation for reinstallation

CONVENIENCE OUTLET REPAIR

I removed the end terminal from the ground wire, put a green heat shrink tube to cover the scraped insulation, installed a new spade terminal and reinstalled the wire. The outlet is now repaired. 

SEQUENCER BOX CLEANED OUT AND READY TO PUT BACK TOGETHER

The thickness of the crust at the bottom of the box made the cleaning task much more difficult. The rodent excretions combine with the rust to form a layer that I have to slowly dissolve, scrub away and sometimes wire brush just to break it up. 

I wasn't able to get all the crust out, particularly in the rear of the box, since my wire brush can't fully attack the corners and edges. Once it was about as good as possible, unless I fully removed it and  submerged it in acid, I began to plan for the reinstallation and rewiring. 

IDENTIFIED ALL WIRES THAT MUST BE REPAIRED AT EXIT HOLE SITE

To make the task easier, I did cut some of the lacing allowing me to look more deeply into the problem area. I spotted one additional wire that had insulation stripped off and that was not obvious when tightly bound. 

The major AC wires were easy to trace down, remove and my newly fashioned replacements are laid in place on the bundle. The more challenging issue are the low voltage thinner wires that run between the SMS card and the relays and other objects inside the sequencer box. I see four cut wires and one that has damaged insulation, thus I will need to repair the five. 

One challenge is that the connectors that slip onto the SMS card are very oxidized with age and that makes them extraordinarily difficult to solder to. I can't find any modern replacements either. I needed to figure out a way to repair these wires since I can't replace the entire wire length as I did with the high voltage lines. 

Since the bundle is set up perfectly to connect to every terminal where it sits, with no excess wire length, I can't pull the cut ends together and solder them or the terminal spacing will be impaired. Once I was resigned to having splices with heat shrink, the repair went quickly. I cut back both sides and used some new wire as a bridge segment. Thus there were two solder joints for each repaired wire, with heat shrink tubing over each joint.

RUNNING NEW WIRES AND TEMPORARY ZIP TIE TO BUNDLE

All the new wires were bent into shape and run alongside the bundle. Yellow zip ties held them in place while I got everything shipshape. The plan was to remove the broken parts of the old lacing and the yellow zip ties section by section, then lace all wires together, much like this bundle was when originally manufactured. 

TESTING ALL CONNECTIONS

I sat with the schematics and beeped out every terminal connection to be certain that everything is connected properly. With every terminal properly wired to its other end, be it terminal or component, as long as I get each terminal on its proper screw terminal during assembly, the sequencer will be correct when installation is complete. With a well laced bundle, the terminals will be direction in front of their intended screw. 

RELACING OF THE BUNDLE

I grabbed my lacing cord and went to work. While a person can lace cord with a running knot for all the intermediate fastenings, if the cord is cut then it unravels through all those running knots. Instead, I took more time to make each tie tight even if it has to stand along, but the cord was continuous for long stretches. 

This is a time consuming task particularly with a large unwieldy bundle. I didn't finish by the end of the day but had a good portion completed. When I return to the shop tomorrow I should be able to finish the lacing and begin the reinstallation in the sequencer box.