Replacing B4 Glow Plug Harness

Planning to replace glow plugs and harness over the weekend. From everything I've read here, the concensus appears to be cutting the wires and splicing in the new harness. I gather there's no easy way to remove the connectors from the wiring harness and insert the ends of the new glow plug harness.

I've got decent soldering skills, so the task is simple enuf. Just seems it would be a cleaner install if it was possible without splicing in the new harness.

Any other tips??

GMC: When I replaced the glowplug harness a few months ago, I tried to extract the wires from the harness connector. PITA, and never got them out. The Lisle pin extractor was too short, and the paperclip method didn't work.

I finally just cut the wires as close to the old harness as I could, cut the ends of the new harness and spliced.

I am not a fan of inline crimp connectors, so I did use a slightly different splice method. I purchased some specialized splicers that are made in Old Navy's part of the country. These splicer have a cone-shaped metal insert in the center, and a screw cap on each end that tightens the wire onto the cone. I put a little Oxgard on each cone to prevent corrosion. Worked very well. Available from autozone or carquest stores.

If you would like to see them, search. Old Navy posted a picture of these connectors sometime earlier this year.

Thanks - I've got some thin aluminum stock in the shop. Might try to make an extraction tool with that. Prob'ly will end up splicing too tho'. If so, I'm planning on soldering the connections and closing with shrink sleeve.

When replacing the harness, is it best to remove the steel injector fuel lines or work around them?

I somehow managed to wiggle everything apart & connect the new harness without cutting or splicing--honestly can't recall how it worked other than there was much abuse of the King's English and I believe I used a couple tools in manners not intended by their designers.

Of course I also once drove around for a month with my broken upper shifter cable mount held together with about fifteen zip ties...

RE: disconnecting injector lines--IMO never unscrew anything you aren't ready to immediately replace--if I could swap out my harness without butchering any adjacent structures, it should be a piece of cake for anyone else.

I replaced my harness a few months ago. I did not remove any fuel injection lines. I just pulled the old harness off the GPs and carefully wigggled it out from under everything. It helps to use long needle-nose pliers.

I thought I could disassemble the wire loom plug where the glow plug harness terminates and get the spade lugs out, but I didn't have the special pin removal tool at the time. From what I've read, even using the pin removal tool does not always work. So I gave up on that idea and spliced the new GP harness to the old. I left all the old GP harness wire so I have pleanty of wire to work with.

Instead of soldering the wires, I used a butt-splice for #12/#10 wire and crimped it. I have a regular crimp tool so I have good tight crimps. I bought water proof butt-splices from the local NAPA auto parts store. These have the water proof heat-shrink insulation on them. So after I crimped the splice I carefully used a heat gun to seal it up. It looks rather neat.

Total investment, about $25 for a harness and splices. Time wise I spent about three hours on the project. 2.5 hours removing the harness off the engine so I could get at the end of the GP harness, screwing around trying to get the GP harness spade lugs out of the loom plug, and then saying the hell with this and then putting it all back together. Less than 30 minutes doing the splice and reinstalling the new harness.

No more GP codes!!!

Brian, 97 Passat TDI