Patent ID: 7624503

Claim:
A method for manufacturing a wire harness branching portion comprising the steps of: drawing out, from a trunk line of a wire harness electric wires to be a branch line, said drawn out portion being longer than a required length of the branch line; forming a branch line portion by applying tape winding to the drawn-out electric wires, wherein the forming of the branch line portion comprises applying the tape winding to a trunk line accompanying part and a main branch line part, the trunk line accompanying part defined from a proximal end of the branch line portion to a branching position of the branch line portion, and the main branch line part defined from the branching position of the branch line portion to a distal end of the branch line portion; maintaining the trunk line accompanying part with the trunk line while extending the main branch line part from the branching position and without folding the branch line portion into a U-turn shape; keeping the main branch line part away from the trunk line; and applying a protecting treatment by tape winding to the trunk line and at least the trunk line accompanying part without forming the U-turn shape in the trunk line accompany part; wherein opposite ends of the trunk line are connected to connectors, respectively, and wherein the protecting treatment is applied by tape winding to the trunk line and at least the trunk line accompanying part from a vicinity of one of the connectors to a vicinity of another of the connectors without forming the U-turn shape in the trunk line accompanying part; further comprising: drawing out, from a second trunk line, a general branch line portion defined by electric wires to be a general branch line with a required length of the branch line; keeping the general branch line portion distant from the second trunk line; and overlapping the first trunk line and second trunk line while aligning the main branch line part and the general branch line portion in position; wherein the applying the protecting treatment by tape winding to the trunk line and at least the accompanying part comprises applying the protecting treatment by winding tape to the trunk line, the second trunk line, and at least the trunk line accompanying part.