97 Ranger rear body wiring harness

While troubleshooting tail light problems I found that a previous owner had tapped in to the factory harness at the drivers side of the rear connector to make a home made trailer harness. The tap connectors were corroded and one wire broke at the tap while I was checking what was what. I spliced the wires as best I could with not much room to work and not much good wire left at the connector. Lights are now working but...

To prevent future problems I would like to replace the factory harness. I'm hoping someone can give me some tips. Can anyone point me to a shcematic? Not so much a wiring diagram but an exploded view showing harness connectors and mounting methods?

It looks like I would most likely unplug the harness at four places?

- the connector at the rear (where the trailer harness should plug in)

- two connectors at the drivers side tail lights?

- one connector forward somewhere?

Is this correct? Where is the forward conenctor? Can the drivers side part of the harness be removed after unplugging these connectors? Does anything else have to be dissasembled?

What exactly should I ask for when hunting a replacement at a wrecking yard? Does anyone have a Ford part number?

thanks in advance

Mark

Your asking for trouble doing this. The connectors are probably old enough that if you start unplugging things that plastic will start snapping then you will never get the new harness together tightly. If you absolutely must do this, then the trick is to take a shop towel and wind it around the connector, pour very hot to boiling water on the towel, then quickly while the plastic is still warm and pliable, and using neophrene gloves, to disconnect the fitting. At the wrecking yard, you merely cut the wires upstream of the connectors and take the assembly home and separate it with the boiling water trick. I would suggest starting with the wrecking yard harness first to see if you can get it apart without snapping the plastic.

If you don't know how to properly splice wires then take it to an auto electrician. Your talking 1/2 hour of work with a solding iron and heatshrink tube to do a proper splice. If there's still a hitch on there they can probably even do a proper splice of a trailer harness socket on to the vehicle so you could use the hitch.

Tap connectors serve but 1 function, they are cheap and quick and only require a pair of pliers to put on. So, the untrained monkeys at U-Haul can quickly get the harness connected for the U-Haul trailer that the customer has rented. The untrained monkeys don't give a crap that

6 months later that the mass of electrical tape they wound around the tap connector to keep the water out has unwound itself and left a sticky mess behind, and water has corroded the harness into a mess. That's someone else's problem.

Ted