Rear hatch wiring harness #s?

[impster]

I have to either replace or repair the wiring harness to the rear hatch on my '99 528it and have been unable to identify the correct part numbers from RealOEM. Can anyone point me in the right direction? Part number and/or diagram?

[impster]

In the words of Gilda Radner's Rosanna Danna: Never mind! Should have posted to the touring forum.

[jclausen]

Gnerally you would repair your harness the new oem harness will be expensive.

[BimmrMeUpSnotty]

Yep, it’s gonna be a lot. Repair it, they usually fail right behind the plastic cover of the hinges. One or two wires, from opening and closing, the wire chafed up and wears through the wires shielding. The exposed copper then corrodes at the exposed area, resistance occurs, worse, the really bad section then breaks apart. Corrosion will also creep into the still covered sections, so you will have to expose those corroded areas of the wire too. Hard part is if it goes deep enough into the roof, dropping the rear section of the headliner now becomes a must. Cut the bad sections out, replace with the same gauge of wire, solder it in, cover with good heat shrink. If you use the cheeseball heat shrink, it will only be a matter of time before the thin cheap stuff rips open and exposes the wire all over again. The plastic covers on the hinges, in my opinion were designed to be too snugged up against the wires, which causes this problem 15 to 20 years down the road.

When I did the repair on my now wrecked 528 wagon, I placed a 1/8” thick adhesive backed foam sleeve that I had handy. I stuck it onto the inside surface of the plastic covers. It made snapping them back on a small chore. So, another thing to keep in mind, don’t wrapthe harness up too thick with electrical tape after doing the repair.

I picked up a 2003 525 wagon recently, I have to inspect those wires to see if they’re compromised too, will be picking up Jaxplanet’s 528 wagon up in 10 days or so, his wagon is just like my old Oxford Green 2 528 wagon that I wrecked a month ago, identical cars, except, mine had 210,000 miles on it, but it ran like a Swiss watch, his has 74,000. I was gonna dump this 525 wagon, but it actually runs like a champ! Got it for $500 from Poolman, it did need some cleaning up, I had to address the wet floors behind the front seats, rear door vapor barriers were not sealed up properly, so that was the first fix, vacuumed up all the water from the carpets and the foam under the carpets, shampoos the carpets, car doesn’t smell anymore, aside from all that, I’ve filled it with gas, added quart of oil, installed a sport steering wheel, the grandpa wheel wasn’t cutting it, replaced the rear door well sill plates with good ones that I had sitting around, the MID’s pixels were all messed up, the one in my wrecked 528’s MID now sits and works perfectly in the 525, the car is probably the best $500 BMW wagon running around. I was gonna get rid of it when Jax’s green wagons paperwork get prepared for the sale, the DMV in Maryland sure drags their heels, but I’ve decided to keep this 525, so..... I will have 3 E39’s once again, used to have an ‘01 530 sport but sold it. Figure I’ll probably drop an LS3 into the 525 later on down the road. But yeah, got carried away, I will have to inspect the tailgates harnesses one of these weekends.

[CPHES]

Also, watch out for rusting hinges, my 540it came from Boston, and the hinge pins rusted and broke. It’s another stressor on the wires