Vanagon wiring is mostly 12 gauge and 14 gague stranded.  Use butt splices, a
straight insulated aluminum tube.  Stick the stripped wires in each end and
crimp them.  Everything you need (wire, splices, stripper/crimper) is stock
Home Depot stuff.

BTW, the problem is as likely to be wires in the bundle shorting to each
other because of melted insulation.  Happened to me when I got a crack in the
muffler that jetted up agains the heat shield.

Blake Thornton wrote:

> OK, if you read my post yesterday, my van is dying and I can't find the
> culprit.  I have decided that it could be some bad wires in my wiring
> harness (I'll explain why I think this below).
>
> So, I plan to cut open the suspect location and begin splicing new wires
> where I think there are now bad wires.  So, I could really use some help
> knowing how to do this.
>
> - Do I need to use any special kind of wire?  (what gauge, solid or
> strands, any special kind of casing on the wire needed, etc)?
>
> - Are wire nuts enough or do I need to solder it?  If I need to solder it,
> can someone describe to me how to do this?
>
> - do I need to tape it back up with any special kind of tape (eg heat
> resistant?)
>
> Now for my reasoning:
>
> About a year and a half ago, I found my wiring harness slipped and touched
> my muffler (the engine shield wasn't attached properly).  It seemed to
> burn the wire and my van died for a day.  The next day the van started up
> and it has ran ever since.
>
> I forgot about this until yesterday when a couple people said my van dying
> really sounds like a bad ground.  Well, I knew I cleaned all my grounds
> and then it occured to me that I had this wiring problem.  I figure that
> perhaps the heat weakened the wires and now they are only marginal.
>
> So, I plan to cut open the harness and replace all the wires in the
> infected area.
>
> Thanks for any and all ideas,
> Blake
> 84 westy
> SLC UT