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I've only done the job once, so haven't tried it without removing the tailgate. I liked it this way though. It made a great set-up without a lot of twisting my neck and other body contortions.
I read rstarkie's post about this. The original nice wires go from the roof to the lower part of the tailgate. With the tailgate on the sawhorses, it would be easy to cut the connectors off (the ones on both sides that plug in inside the tailgate itself) about 2-3 inches from their terminal connectors, and splice in a section of regular 16 gauge automotive wire about 12-18 inches long. Then you could pull the good wires still in the original sheathing, up through the top of the door/hinges and have nice unused high-quality wire at the stress points. I think you'd end up with three extra connections in each wire this way, two in the tailgate where you splice in the length of regular 16 gauge, and one in the ceiling where you connect the connector to the fresh end of the original harness. You could reduce that to one new joint per wire if you had new proper connectors available to you. (Maybe there's a cleaner way I'm not seeing.) If you don't mind the extra connections/joints in the wires, you'd be fine. In fact, I might do it this way next time. It would be cheaper, and at the real weak link, the hinge, you'd have "unused" high-quality Volvo wire. I don't think the extra joints in the wires would amount to any kind of problem if you soldered them nicely and covered the joints with shrink wrap. You could probably just use a high quality insulated butt connector and forget the shrink wrap.
Check out Noble Part Number S-12H butt connectors at Carquest. A bag of 50 costs $8 for 16-14 gauge. The metal crimps nicely and securely, better than others I've used, and has a thicker wall than cheap butt connectors. Plus the insulation is transparent with just a touch of blue, so you can see exactly when the stripped portion of the wire you are crimping is fully in the metal portion of the connnector. Since I discoved these, I don't use any of the cheap ones anymore. My son redid his 82 tailgate just using these good ones.
Good luck.
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