Rocket Man's 02 Denali Build Thread AKA "THE BEAST"

[Rocket Man]

With the harness, I just do a visual inspection. It's just wiring. Look for obvious signs of deterioration or broken wires/plugs.
The solenoids aren't fluid proof that I can tell. I'm not sure how they work, they just do. I think they are more "pressure" than electronic. That whole system is submerged in fluid

I was wondering since @Stonefort mentioned looking for fluid in the connectors. Do I need to worry about that or just broken wires/ plugs? I would think that since this is a Performabuilt trans I shouldn’t have to worry about a bad harness but then I shouldn’t have to be replacing a solenoid either.

 

[adventurenali92]

118 at 6:45 in the evening in Laughlin right now. Lol

 

[Rocket Man]

I mean I’m just fu**ing around here, not wanting to actually go out there and do this. I looked at buying a new harness but it’s like $200 or more so I’d rather not.

 

[Rocket Man]

118 at 6:45 in the evening in Laughlin right now. Lol

We had a suburb of Portland, Beaverton, just hit 114. There’s Olympic trials in southern Oregon, Eugene, that got postponed today when it hit 110 there before noon and the track temp was measured at 150.

 

[adventurenali92]

We had a suburb of Portland, Beaverton, just hit 114. There’s Olympic trials in southern Oregon, Eugene, that got postponed today when it hit 110 there before noon and the track temp was measured at 150.

Oof that’s hot!

 

[George B]

 

[pwtr02ss]

I was wondering since @Stonefort mentioned looking for fluid in the connectors. Do I need to worry about that or just broken wires/ plugs? I would think that since this is a Performabuilt trans I shouldn’t have to worry about a bad harness but then I shouldn’t have to be replacing a solenoid either.

I think he was referring to fluid in the connector on the outside of the transmission. Where the harness plugs in.

 

[Stonefort]

I think he was referring to fluid in the connector on the outside of the transmission. Where the harness plugs in.

Correct. From my limited knowledge, fluid inside the connector (outside the trans, but both male and female parts) can cause a lot of problems with these electronic controlled transmissions. It's not something you should just clean out and it's GTG, if it's leaking then the potting/seal is bad and the harness needs to be replaced. This knowledge is from precision transmission videos. I swear in every video they make a point to show the connector and talk about leaking plugs messing with the electronics and how that can hurt these computer controlled transmissions pretty bad. @Rocket Man

See pic below, male and female connector.

 

[Stonefort]

What am I looking for in the harness? What keeps the connectors dry? What I find interesting is the 1-2 /3-4 solenoids don’t look waterproof (fluid proof?) at all. Actually the 3-2 doesn’t either.

They work by DC current producing a magnetic field to make the switch move (hence the copper windings). Trans fluid won't keep the magnet from working on a circuit like that, but when fluid leaks into the harness where ALL the pins are in very close proximity to each other, see that could cause issues since the pins are so close together and some of the circuits are relying on small amounts of current to tell the computer whats up or to do something. When ATF wears or gets hot it can pass some current and the proximity of the pins makes that even more likely. The potting inside the trans side of the plug or female side is what keeps the pins from leaking atf.

 

[Rocket Man]

Correct. From my limited knowledge, fluid inside the connector (outside the trans, but both male and female parts) can cause a lot of problems with these electronic controlled transmissions. It's not something you should just clean out and it's GTG, if it's leaking then the potting/seal is bad and the harness needs to be replaced. This knowledge is from precision transmission videos. I swear in every video they make a point to show the connector and talk about leaking plugs messing with the electronics and how that can hurt these computer controlled transmissions pretty bad. @Rocket Man

See pic below, male and female connector.

View attachment 305797

Ah, that connector. Yes, I was planning on checking that one. That’s where I will be doing some testing for signals from the PCM using a dvm. Alldatadiy talks about using some special tool but I don’t have it. I was just trying to access my account but it looks like they’ve jacked up their website and I can’t figure out how to log in OR change my password. And when I try to contact them it just does nothing. Anybody else have alldatadiy?