BiggDogg
A2OC Donor
The button on the tailgate failed to open it intermittently for a week then gave up altogether. I have been opening it using the emergency release which is at the base of the glass and can be flipped out with the ignition key. I had started to think that the CCCU must be on the way out and was responsible because I couldn't get the middle remote button to work either.
Only yesterday I realised that it WOULD open using the remote if I HOLD THE BUTTON DOWN; DOH!
So, this pointed me to the wiring for the tailgate. I popped off the tailgate lining and pulled the wiring from the back of the button switch. I couldn't measure any continuity between the CCCU connector 5 pin 10 (yellow wire with black tracer).
I pulled out from the body the ends of the flexible rubber section that contains the left-hand section of the tailgate wiring. However, there wasn't enough slack to be able to see anything and the wires were all wrapped in cloth tape.
I decided to gain enough slack by disconnecting all the required tailgate wiring and pulling it through a little. This took a while to do. The tailgate wiring is held to white plastic saddles with extra lengths of cloth tape. The saddles seem to be impossible to remove so I just undid the tape instead. It was also necessary to unclip the rear glass surround to reveal the rear window wiring and a few other bits and bobs.
This allowed me to pull through about 20cm / 10" and slide the rubber concertina boot up the wiring and take off lots of sticky cloth tape (WD40 is a great solvent for the adhesive left behind on the wires).
I was quite surprised to find how bad the wiring was: 5 of the 7 wires with damaged insulation and the yellow/black wire to the release switch broken in 2. Sections of the wire insulation had gone hard and brittle, so I cut these out and soldered in sections of wire, using heatshrink to cover the joints and trying not to have the joints in different wires next to each other so as not to excessive create "lumps".
NB: All these wires are from special flexible wire that has tiny strands. It would be preferable to obtain the proper grade of wire but I just used the ordinary stranded wire I had in my garage.
The main earth (brown) and red/black wires are much thicker. The insulation was broken on these and hardened but I decided not to chop and re-join as that would have made significant increase in the overall diameter and probably cause other problems. Instead I have used several layers of insulating tape wrapped around the damaged sections. Pictures below. I didn't re-use the cloth tape, instead I coated all the wires inside the rubber concertina with a bit of silicone grease so they slip past each other more easily. I used some cable ties to hold the wiring onto the saddles which is better than the cloth tape method Audi used. Took about 2 hours, the worse fiddle is getting all the clips straight so the tailgate lining pops back in place, helped with grease on the clips. Remember to reconnect the emergency release cable to the lock before you pop the lining back on. All working nicely now.
Matt
Matt
Only yesterday I realised that it WOULD open using the remote if I HOLD THE BUTTON DOWN; DOH!
So, this pointed me to the wiring for the tailgate. I popped off the tailgate lining and pulled the wiring from the back of the button switch. I couldn't measure any continuity between the CCCU connector 5 pin 10 (yellow wire with black tracer).
I pulled out from the body the ends of the flexible rubber section that contains the left-hand section of the tailgate wiring. However, there wasn't enough slack to be able to see anything and the wires were all wrapped in cloth tape.
I decided to gain enough slack by disconnecting all the required tailgate wiring and pulling it through a little. This took a while to do. The tailgate wiring is held to white plastic saddles with extra lengths of cloth tape. The saddles seem to be impossible to remove so I just undid the tape instead. It was also necessary to unclip the rear glass surround to reveal the rear window wiring and a few other bits and bobs.
This allowed me to pull through about 20cm / 10" and slide the rubber concertina boot up the wiring and take off lots of sticky cloth tape (WD40 is a great solvent for the adhesive left behind on the wires).
I was quite surprised to find how bad the wiring was: 5 of the 7 wires with damaged insulation and the yellow/black wire to the release switch broken in 2. Sections of the wire insulation had gone hard and brittle, so I cut these out and soldered in sections of wire, using heatshrink to cover the joints and trying not to have the joints in different wires next to each other so as not to excessive create "lumps".
NB: All these wires are from special flexible wire that has tiny strands. It would be preferable to obtain the proper grade of wire but I just used the ordinary stranded wire I had in my garage.
The main earth (brown) and red/black wires are much thicker. The insulation was broken on these and hardened but I decided not to chop and re-join as that would have made significant increase in the overall diameter and probably cause other problems. Instead I have used several layers of insulating tape wrapped around the damaged sections. Pictures below. I didn't re-use the cloth tape, instead I coated all the wires inside the rubber concertina with a bit of silicone grease so they slip past each other more easily. I used some cable ties to hold the wiring onto the saddles which is better than the cloth tape method Audi used. Took about 2 hours, the worse fiddle is getting all the clips straight so the tailgate lining pops back in place, helped with grease on the clips. Remember to reconnect the emergency release cable to the lock before you pop the lining back on. All working nicely now.
Matt
Matt