Window controls worked intermittantly for a while then there was this smell of burning insulation and some smoke in the cabin. Pulling a few panels we found at least six areas of the wiring harness burned, including inside the driver's door and in the cable channel that runs down the driver side of the vehicle. I can't imaging how long it would take to find and repair every burned wire so I searched and found a replacement harness on eBay (part number is the same except for the last digit).
A few question for the Forum:
(1) Is this a common problem? The truck has 160K miles and very little rust. A previous owner spliced a few wires in the harness at some point but those areas either didn't get fully repair or have re-fried. Before I replace the harness do I need to track down a possible short in an electrical component (window motor, swich, ect.) or can I assume that this is a common problem with the wiring harness?
(2) The harness I bought is for a short box. Seems like not a huge deal to splice in a section of the old harness to reach the tail lights if that section looks good and isn't crunchy. Sound reasonable?
(3) Do I need to remove the dash to get to the forward connectors? The rest are going to require removal of a bunch of stuff but I don't want to have to pull the entire dash.
(4) Does anybody know where I can find a procedure for swapping out the harness? I have searched with no luck. Nothing shows up on YouTube either.
This looks like a big job but it also looks like it doesn't require special skills or tools.
Thanks in advance!
-Steve

 

What year and body style is your KR?

 

2006 supercrew long box 4wd

 

I bought a used harness from eBay and jumped into the swap project. Just wanted to share what I have learned so far.
1. Much of the damage was near a previous place and I found more in the drivers cable tray which was full of water. Based on that I’ll pressing on as if the harness itself is the culprit.
2. Shirt box vs long box doesn’t seem to affect much. There’s a pair of connectors that mount to the frame outside the cab that attaches to a separate bed wiring harness.
3. Dash connectors are accessible without removing it. I had to pull the fuse box and parking brake pedal but that want a big deal.
4. I didn’t find a procedure on YouTube. Probably should have made one to share what I learned but I suspect that complete wiring harnesses are hard enough to come by that not many people will taking on such a project.

Ill check back in if I learn more during reassembly and testing.