Front Strut Wiring Repair
&
Shield Modification

If you guys are anything like me, I am always catching myself leaning on those darn strut
wiring covers when ever I work on the engine from the side. I know that my ECS Tour Sport Mode
lights were fine when I got the car and not knowing what was under there I didn't think twice about
leaning on them even though there is a sign on there from the factory. My problem came in with my
understanding of the Japanese conversion of the English language. The sign says
"Don't not put on hands or parts"  Well,,,, I read that and the first thing that entered my mind was that the
oil for the front struts was under there and they didn't want you to put the oil on your hands or
parts because, well,, oil is not good to get on your hands?? I don't know,, I guess you could
say I didn't spend too much time trying to figure out what they were trying to tell me. Well, when my
Tour / Sport Mode lights started flashing the dealer said I needed a new strut or a new wiring harness.
Well, guys on the list already told me about the wires and I had already did a continuity check on them and
they all were fine so I thought ,, hmmm must be the strut, so I bought one. After installing it I still had the
same problem. I had wasted $167 on a new strut I didn't need. Redoing a continuity check I found that I
had lost continuity on one of the wires on the drivers side wire harness. Hmmm again,, intermittent problem.
Well, being highly T'd off because the dealer could have done a better job if he had a spare harness as
a test tool, I just swallowed my pride and kept the new strut. I did let the service manager know I was
dissatisfied with their testing procedure.
Lot of good that did I am sure. They spend $20,000 on an analyzer that interfaces with the ECS
computer and they don't even bother to spend probably $40 their price for another tool that would
eliminate or confirm a wire harness problem. To me,,, dumb or,, maybe smart? After all they got a profit out
of me for the new strut,, trouble is they lost my confidence, which cost them more in the long run I am sure.
Well, shown below is an extreme close up of the wire that had the problem. It had broke inside the insulation.
If you bend the wire in a few places the place that the wire is broke will have a sharp bend because there is
no wire there to keep it stiff.
I had already cut it off there in the photo and you can see how the ends are bent. Two guess how this
happened. Yep, you are right on the first guess. It was most likely due to me leaning on the strut covers
when cleaning up the engine compartment. Ohhhhhh, now I know what they meant by
"Do not put on hands or parts"
Don't put your hands or parts on top of this cover because there are fragile little wires
inside right under the center of the cover and we really designed this bad with no protection,
but we did provide this little sign for you to read so you would know.
Yeah,,,, right,,,,  here is the photo of the wire cover on the left and the close up of the broken wire on the right.
 

This next photo shows the wire soldered. I used a small circuit board soldering iron. I didn't take a photo
of the wire taped up and put back together, but the repair worked fine and solved the problem with the
lights flashing. I should have put some heat shrink insulation on the wire. Would have been a better job
but couldn't find it.

From that time on I have been under the hood and still have found myself leaning on the covers
with my elbows and set about to come up with a solution to this problem whereby I could lean on them
and not worry about the wires underneath like they should have been done from the factory.
Well, I came up with one and it works fine.
It cost me about $2 and about an hour of my time. Here it is,,, engineers eat your pride,, And Mitsubishi,,
you won't need to make as many new wiring harnesses to replace bad ones for very long.
This solves an 8 year problem with these cars because they did it every year it seems without
changing their process,, what they need is a mass recall to wake them up I guess
So, here it is,, remove the three bolts surrounding the cap. Make sure you don't have the car
jacked up at the time because these bolts also hold your strut in place and the studs will drop out of the
holes. Make sure the wheels are on the ground You do not have to unplug the harness to do this
modification, just move it to the side, in fact, you need it to stay there
Here is a photo of their inferior setup below with only a thin plastic cover to protect the wires

Go out and buy yourself two 2" PVC Caps like the one shown in the photo below
 

Now take a ruler and measure the height from the steel plate on the strut housing to the top of the
wire boot. Now measure the depth of the cap at the center and add back 1/16th inch. Remeasure and
refigure for accuracy. Once this is done draw a line around the PVC cap where you wish to cut it off.
I am not giving a set measurement here because yours might be slightly different and you might get a
different cap than the one I bought and you have to remember this is a custom fit.
Now place the cap in a vise and using a hack saw to cut on the line, trimming away the needed amount
for the boot to be almost touching the inside top of the cap, plus 1/16th inch for trim fit as shown in the photo
on the left below. Now cut a notch for the wire to pass through as shown in the photo on the right below
 

 Now try the fit and see how much you have to take off to make it so it's just barely touching the boot
cap of the wire harness as shown below. At this point I used a belt sander to trim down the cap till I got it
exactly where I wanted it. A file can also be used or maybe you would like to plan your cut a little closer.
If you make a mistake there and its off to Home Depot again and I didn't want to do this, so I took my time,
knowing I could shave it off with a belt sander which is why I added the 1/16th inch. At this time file the slot
for the wiring with a file so the edges are nice and smooth so they won't cut.
Shown below left is the cap sitting on the strut protecting the wire and completed as far as the depth
adjustment Now we must shave off the top to fit the curvature of the original boot. I did this also with a belt
sander, trying the cover on every once and a while to check for good fit. That photo is shown on the right,
completed and painted.
(Don't ask why I painted it, just consider the source, hehe)
 

To give you a better understanding of how much stock you have to trim off, here is a view of a cap
undone and the completed cap next to each other. It looks like a lot, but the second one took me all of a half
hour to complete knowing the plan of attack better due to having already done one
 

 And Finally here is the view of the original cap back on with the modified cap underneath.
You could now hit this thing with a hammer and the wire harness will just laugh at you
 

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Photos and text Copyright John C. Adams  Use prohibited without authorization.
For questions send e-mail.   Last Update 12/22/98