I had an intermittent suspension fault with a code that pointed to left rear height sensor. I dropped the spare and poked around. Turned out to be a very frayed wire on the short loom from the frame rail to the sensor, just after the corrugated wire protector. Seemed like an easy fix, but these things never go that way for me. First off, I broke the connector that attached the harness to the sensor. Then I struggled with a butt connector to repair the wire because of how short the run is there, and how tight the area to work in. Long story short, it's a kluge that is currently being held together with wire-ties, but mostly gravity and tension.

I ordered a knockoff of YMQ503220, which is the female connector with a short pigtail that I'll need to splice on. Does anyone happen to know if the short run from the larger loom on the inner frame rail can be freed up so that maybe it can be accessed from the other side with more space to work? If not, I guess I can just cut the 3 wires right at the (broken) connector and make the splice there but that leaves my kludgy butt connector and I'd worry about that rearing its head some cold and rainy day.

Thanks for any input.

 

You should be able to get a bit more room by pulling the plastic 'christmas tree' rivet that holds that section of the loom in place. I did this job a few years ago and I don't recall having access issues. Given the location, I would recommend solder + heat shrink as opposed using crimp-on butt connectors given how much water that area sees.

Here's a youtube of someone doing this job if you want a visual reference:

 

thanks for sending that along! I had actually grabbed the part number for the repair pigtail from that video. The issue I have is that the wire broke several inches back from there, towards the middle of the truck, and it gets tighter as it goes back so I don't have the luxury of cutting at the end near the connector. And I've maybe given up another 1/2" or so of valuable real estate with my crimped connector field repair. But I agree, splicing with solder is the way to go. I think I'll just commit to getting it done as-is where-is. I bought a 500-pack of the kind of shrink wrap that comes with the glue inside for the finish work so I'll be better off than the electrical tape that I couldn't wrap neatly back that far.

Thanks again for the advice and wish me luck!

 

I just checked the electrical schematics for the LR3, and the ride height sensors (all 4) feed into the air suspension control module. Based on the instructions at Atlantic British on how to wire-in their air suspension override device located here https://www.roverparts.com/instructi...structions.cfm, this module would appear to be on the US driver's side near the footwell. That would mean that the wires probably run down under the floor plastic weather stripping, up the rear wheel arch and into the rear left quarter panel before going through one of the underside access grommets. I'm not 100% confident on this, but this would seem to indicate that they are located in one of the main harnesses on the rear underside of the car. The 3 wires in question are 0.5mm thick, and color running from the air suspension control module to the height sensor -- your picture indicates this is left side rear sensor -- are Orange Red, Orange Yellow and Orange Black. There is one connector junction in between the module and the sensor, and I suspect that is in the rear quarter panel area either before or after the floor grommet. But again I'm only about 65% confident on this.

 

Oh here's a trick if you need to cut into a taped or sealed wiring harness. A seam ripper from a sewing kit makes fast work of the tape on a wiring harness with little risk to the wires.

 

thanks so much for this insight! When I was originally diagnosing this I started from the spare tire area and moved out towards the wheel. So when I found the (obvious) issue, I focused on that and didn't work backwards, back to the larger harness. But I do recall that the satellite harness split off with wrap and not a connector, but your point is well taken. I tend to focus on the typical path but there's no reason I couldn't go upstream, even into the larger harness on the other side of the frame rail, and find the right wire. I think the pigtail is long enough. I'd be hesitant with a seam ripper but it seems as good as any other tool and better than a razor blade.

Thanks again for your insight and advice!

 

Part arrived and I just sucked it up and went in through the front. It's ugly but I feel like I did get relatively reasonable amounts of solder on the connections, then protected them with the shrink wrap. No suspension faults, tho I didn't view the realtime data to confirm it looked good. But I think everything'll be OK.

Thanks for the input.

 

Excellent!