Thread: Wiring Harness Terminations

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Originally Posted by Itoldyouso

Buzz is right..........crimp terminals are perfectly fine, and in some cases much better than soldered ones. Soldering can make the ends brittle and prone to breaking. I know there will be an argument on that, but if you feel comfortable soldering, do it, and if you like crimping, go that route. We crimp everything.

Don

yep i here what they say about solder .. but think about it ? if something thing is shaking that much to break a small wire then you have alot of other stuff thats going to bust off or back off nuts bolts ?? as well .i do use both. i have seen more crimps fall out if not crimp right then solder one break off .when i was a rigger at the boat yard we used crimp ends the hi quality one that the jacket did not bust off when crimped .but on the street rods i have wired i like to solder then and use shrink tube on them for a time there i was wiring alot of street rods for a guy i knew he would never look at the wiring in the street rods he pick up two of them allmost burnt down .i had a line on the hard to fined head lite spade end connectors i liked to use the pain less universal fuse block .or buy the blocks from Car Quest . the last thing i wired was a 1940 MACK truck with a 350 chevy engine i put in it

I did a lot of wiring on aircraft, both commercial and military, and crimp connections are fine if the proper connector and crimping tool is used. As far as soldering goes military aircraft employs many soldered connections and if done properly will outlast and offers less impedance than any crimp connection. BTW, I have never heard of heat weakening wire strands, please explain.

solder and shrink tube for me...unless it's a really nasty place to get to then it's a crimp, or one of the new connectors I got from Del City that have the solder and shrink sleeve in/on the connector--hit them with the heat gun, the solder melts around the wire and the shrink sleeve shrinks!

Originally Posted by NTFDAY

I did a lot of wiring on aircraft, both commercial and military, and crimp connections are fine if the proper connector and crimping tool is used. As far as soldering goes military aircraft employs many soldered connections and if done properly will outlast and offers less impedance than any crimp connection. BTW, I have never heard of heat weakening wire strands, please explain.

copper wire is very soft and when its heated not much happens that i know of if cooled fast then its dead soft so ? it going to take a hell of alot of bending heat is not going to hurt it as you solder it. your making all strands solid but thats at the connector and is going to be at a hard point if wire is hanged up i just do not buy the wire busting off if moveing that much then the wire it self will bust in time from bending just like the wire going to the power windows in my truck

Embrittlement of solder joints from a pure technical standpoint generally refers to hard joints like a wire to a contact, or a wire to a pin connector, and is due to gold contamination in the joint. Here is much more than you'll ever want to know about the term http://www.semlab.com/goldembrittlem...lderjoints.pdf
In the industry people picked up the term "embrittlement" and applied it to the fact that if you solder flexible copper wire it becomes stiffer, or more brittle, and tends to fail adjacent to the joint if flexed too much or subjected to constant vibration. In a static situation I don't believe that there is any issue with good solder joints (not overheated), or with properly made up crimp connection. If you're in a place where you expect lots of flex, like a door joint or hood light, putting either type of joint at/near the point of flex is not going to work well - you're putting a stiff point in the midst of a flexible wire, and it is going to concentrate the flex adjacent to the stiff point. The joint needs to be static. At least that's how I see it...

Good point Rog! No electrical connection or splice should ever be in a position where it can flex... Good reason for using lots of wire ties, clamps, waxed string, or whatever to secure your wiring and prevent things coming loose... I think it's also just as important to properly plan the placement of your components as it is to properly wire them. Avoid areas of high heat, excessive vibration, or someplace where something else can bang into a component or the wiring to it.. Rubber mounts work well to absorb a lot of the vibration, too. Learned that from circle burnin' and bangin' on 4 and 5 speed cars over the years.. A good hard launch with a drag car will thoroughly check the proper mounting of electrical components and the wiring connections! Oh yeah, and don't forget to leave a bit of slack in all your wiring in case things do get jiggled around a bit.

Couldn't agree more Don, solder has no place on auto wiring, you can't control the flow and vibration will crack the wire. Crimping is by far the best if done with a quality tool.

Originally Posted by Itoldyouso

Buzz is right..........crimp terminals are perfectly fine, and in some cases much better than soldered ones. Soldering can make the ends brittle and prone to breaking. I know there will be an argument on that, but if you feel comfortable soldering, do it, and if you like crimping, go that route. We crimp everything.

Don

Originally Posted by roadster32

Couldn't agree more Don, solder has no place on auto wiring, you can't control the flow and vibration will crack the wire. Crimping is by far the best if done with a quality tool.

Steve/Don,
So how do you make running splices, say for a ground wire that needs to pick up several components, then run to a body/chassis ground; or a power feed to a GM headlight switch that also needs to hit a second spade terminal on the same switch? I have not seen a "Y" crimp connection? One thought is to strip back 1/2" of insulation on the main run, tightly twist your branch wire around that bare section, and securely heat shrink it. No solder joint then.... just wondering what you use?

Originally Posted by roadster32

Couldn't agree more Don, solder has no place on auto wiring, you can't control the flow and vibration will crack the wire. Crimping is by far the best if done with a quality tool.

Hmmmm, I hate arguments and controversey and I agree that top quality crimp terminals and the proper crimp tool can produce good results and everything has its place. But being in this business since 1973 and having attended G.M.,Chrysler,and Ford training centers. They all preach that the only approved method of wire repair for "them" is solder & heatshrink,especially on computer controlled systems. I also will say when I purchase a dealer part that comes with a replacement pigtail or harness, it contains solder terminals & heatshrink. Sooooooooo I don't know, But I am a contankerous old creature of habit and having never suffered a failure of a solder joint after all these years, and having had the privelege or nightmare of tracing down problems caused by poor crimp connections I believe I'll just keep the electrical drawer of one of my toolboxes stocked with solder,butane and heatshrink...

Originally Posted by HWORRELL

Hmmmm, I hate arguments and controversey and I agree that top quality crimp terminals and the proper crimp tool can produce good results and everything has its place. But being in this business since 1973 and having attended G.M.,Chrysler,and Ford training centers. They all preach that the only approved method of wire repair for "them" is solder & heatshrink,especially on computer controlled systems. I also will say when I purchase a dealer part that comes with a replacement pigtail or harness, it contains solder terminals & heatshrink. Sooooooooo I don't know, But I am a contankerous old creature of habit and having never suffered a failure of a solder joint after all these years, and having had the privelege or nightmare of tracing down problems caused by poor crimp connections I believe I'll just keep the electrical drawer of one of my toolboxes stocked with solder,butane and heatshrink...

Couldn't agree more. I've been soldering since about 1960 and will continue to do so. I soldered when I was in the Corps and was certified to solder on military aircraft when I worked at McDonnell Douglas and in a pinch have made connectors from copper tubing.

I'm not ready to do the wiring on my 37 yet but I'm learning a lot about it from this thread. Thanks guys! I like to keep these things in mind while I'm doing the other work on the car so hopefully I can plan around potential problems as I progress.

Roger,

Here's the answer. Crimp all your connections . . . then solder them.

Originally Posted by Henry Rifle

Roger,

Here's the answer. Crimp all your connections . . . then solder them.

Originally Posted by Henry Rifle

Roger,

Here's the answer. Crimp all your connections . . . then solder them.

Jack, I was thinking of splicing each one, then crimping one leg and soldering the other but I can't decide on how to splice them, soldered or crimped.

Originally Posted by HWORRELL

Couldn't have said it better myself

Originally Posted by rspears

Steve/Don,
So how do you make running splices, say for a ground wire that needs to pick up several components, then run to a body/chassis ground; or a power feed to a GM headlight switch that also needs to hit a second spade terminal on the same switch? I have not seen a "Y" crimp connection? One thought is to strip back 1/2" of insulation on the main run, tightly twist your branch wire around that bare section, and securely heat shrink it. No solder joint then.... just wondering what you use?

I would not just twist a wire around the other as you suggested as this type of connection is just not satisfactory. I would mount a ground terminal block and individualy bring your wires to it and terminate 1 by 1. Run a # 10 to feed the block. For the power circuits you can also use a quality terminal block with a jumper bar that that will tie them together and make it a common supply. Just don't overload the circuit. For the one offs they do make what is called piggy back terminals for things like the switches you refered to. Wiring techniques like this will provide you with a quality installation and if you ever need to do some troubleshooting or additions it sure makes it nice later. Check out http://www.tnb.com/contractor/docs/stakon.pdf this site for all your needs. Some of the best stuff in the industry.