broken harness plug for clock, need serious help Options

[chacha]

hey you guys, i have a problem, the heat of the sun melted the black tape that was wrapped around the white adapter in the clock's plug where the ac vent is located and my whole radio system died as well as the clock and the 12v smoke adapter, no more power. When i open the covers to check what was wrong, the wires that connects to the white adapter to the clock's pin was smoking and two of the wires were out...black tape as i have mentioned melted and created a tar like paste inside the adapter....it worries me because this is connected to the other harness inside the car's dash....what should i do? should i cut the wires and reattach it together or just take it to the toyota dealership and have them fix it when i know it will cost an arm and leg? im soo bummed out..ill try to post some pics so you guys know what i am talking about, but if you know what im referring too....please give me some insights on how to fix it...thanks!

[MaskedMan]

for some reason, i dont think it was the sun that melted the tape. Heat from the sun is not great enough to melt the tape, AND cuase your wires to smoke. I think it was an electrical short that cuased the wires to heat up and smoke and ended up blowing the fuse too becuase the radio system, cigarette lighter, and the clock are all run off the same fuse. My guess is that the 2 wires that were out, were prolly touching, and one just happened to be Positive (+) and the other just happened to be Ground (-). This cuased the electricity to bypass the load (clock) and burn your wires. If you can, repair the wires, by soldering them, or even using connectors, But make sure they are taped up good and dont touch. Solder and shrink wrap is the best choice. Then replace the fuse. Test if your radio and stuff works. If the fuse blows again, then there are more problems, but i think this is the only thing that went wrong.

If the actual connector is broken, just go to a junkyard and go snip snip .

This post has been edited by MaskedMan: Jul 7, 2006 - 10:16 PM