Soldering help

connections

Screw or spade connectors?

I suspect it's been a while since you've looked under the dash at a modern vehicle wiring harness..

Reply to
Rick
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These are the best I've seen for your application.

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Available at any good parts house

DE

Reply to
DE

I don't doubt you at all that some installers say that but it would make an absolutely terrible joint, almost completely useless without solder.

I.D. connectors can make a long-term reliable joint when properly sized and applied.

For the OP's situation I'd go with Spehro's suggestions, just be certain to get the right size and crimp it correctly - ask if you don't know how.

Fred R ________________ Drop TROU to email.

Reply to
Fred R

OK. My advice is don't screw with your harness. You may be cursing that remote starter when you're out in the remote and can't start your vehicle! That said, there are many different size soldering irons with different capacities. As someone else suggested, wet solder on the tip will help. It is also critical that the iron section is held tightly with the screws at the end of the gun. When they are just slightly loose, little heat transfer occurs. Make sure the wire is hot enough to melt the solder, as opposed to dropping hot solder on cold wires.

Reply to
ATP*

A good crimp is better than a good solder joint. A bad crimp is trouble waiting to happen. Crimping heavy wire well requires a ratchet crimper or something that is used with a big hammer. The hammer-operated crimpers aren't expensive but I don't know where to tell you to look.

To solder wire that heavy, you'll need a bigger iron, like a 150 watt soldering gun. A pencil iron won't hack it. This will:

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As Spehro sez, be sure to use rosin core "electronic" solder. Scrape or sand the wires bright before trying to solder them.

Reply to
Don Foreman

While I never use crimps for automotive applications (my approach is solder and heat-shrink) I have to admit that your comments in this particular thread are probably spot-on.

Honestly though if he cannot solder wires like that, his success rate with crimp joints will be a good deal below yours, I bet.

Jim

Reply to
jim rozen

Indeed. Most everything these days has an integral connector, often the sealed weather-pak variety.

Pete C.

Reply to
Pete C.

Reply to
Pete C.

On Tue, 27 Dec 2005 07:46:37 GMT, with neither quill nor qualm, Carl Byrns quickly quoth:

"Bullpuckey, Carl." I respectfully disagreed. ;) Crimping is as much an art (especially with a cheap crimping tool) as soldering or welding.

Ditto to both. Quick, hot joints are the Tao of soldering.

No kidding. I can't believe some of the electrical work I've seen on equipment and vehicles. Unreal stuff.

Although I agree that a too-small iron is the wrong tool, I much prefer a solder joint to a crimp, and often soldered crimped joints as well (with a pistol-grip Weller gun and rosin core solder) though I never soldered a battery cable. I probably would have used the o/a torch for that. I cleaned the flux off so it wouldn't have any chance of reacting in the joint, too.

When I was wrenching for a living, I did a lot of of underdash work for the body shop, replacing dashboards galore, repairing and replacing harnesses, even building entire new harnesses when a new one wasn't available. None of my soldered work ever came back in the

5 years I worked there, before hurting my back.

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Reply to
Larry Jaques

On Tue, 27 Dec 2005 08:28:10 GMT, with neither quill nor qualm, Gunner Asch quickly quoth:

I firmly disagree x2.

First, I doubt that even a large Weller gun would do the trick. A small propane/butane or o/a torch would be a much better tool.

Second, I've never seen a tap into starter cables. They use relays or solenoids as is done properly on Fords (and some Chryslers.)

At this point, I'm pretty sure the OP is trolling. I don't see his posts unless someone quotes him.

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Reply to
Larry Jaques

Gentlemen, I am confused a little bit. The OP is installing a remote starter kit.

These kits allow the user to start his vehicle from some distance.

They basically add one more way to turn the vehicle on (by radio signal), besides the old fashioned ignition key.

As such, they deal with mo more amps than ignition key does. It should not be very many amps -- all that is needed is to engage the starter solenoid, and maybe even less if another relay is involved somewhere.

I would be surprised to see very thick wires there.

The wires that I saw in related areas of my pickup were no more than perhaps 14 gauge.

Am I completely off base here?

i
Reply to
Ignoramus7428

Nope.

Best regards, Spehro Pefhany

Reply to
Spehro Pefhany

Want to borrow my 100W American Beauty "pencil" iron? Complete with ladder-clamp holder. (Though I might have a 120W element in it, I don't remember which box I grabbed when it puked the factory heater.)

Spent many a long night strapping DTA's with that bugger. Got into the very dying tail end of AE Steppers, doing last-minute adds and changes at the same time we were building GTD-5's to replace them.

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Reply to
Bruce L. Bergman

In that case..use a wire tap the proper way.

"Pax Americana is a philosophy. Hardly an empire. Making sure other people play nice and dont kill each other (and us) off in job lots is hardly empire building, particularly when you give them self determination under "play nice" rules.

Think of it as having your older brother knock the shit out of you for torturing the cat." Gunner

Reply to
Gunner Asch

Shrug.

Gunner, who has soldered main power cables from the battery with a Weller 250 in just such a fashion, quite sucessfully.

Okie engineering is an art form.

"Pax Americana is a philosophy. Hardly an empire. Making sure other people play nice and dont kill each other (and us) off in job lots is hardly empire building, particularly when you give them self determination under "play nice" rules.

Think of it as having your older brother knock the shit out of you for torturing the cat." Gunner

Reply to
Gunner Asch

Torch only works if you have a soldering tip on it; otherwise it burns the flux.

It's rather amazing what those big Wellers can do. 8 gage wire is no problem at all.

Reply to
Don Foreman

On Tue, 27 Dec 2005 17:20:41 -0600, with neither quill nor qualm, Don Foreman quickly quoth:

Heat, apply flux, apply solder to already heated joint. Reapply torch to area very briefly if necessary.

Yabbut we're talking 4 or 6 gauge, aren't we? (Hold on a sec.) OK, I just checked my guns and they're both Weller Juniors, 120v @ 1.1A 60Hz. That's only 132 watts. I'm thinking of a different gun that you guys are. Mea culpa. A 2x larger one probably would do it.

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Reply to
Larry Jaques

It definitely will -- and you're right, he's probably talking about solenoid wire.

Those little butane pencil torches with soldering iron tips are really handy for automotive wiring. They won't do the heavy stuff, but they do up to #14 with no problem. I used to have a soldering copper tip that fit on a Bernz-O-Matic torch but I haven't seen it for years. It was great for heavy wire and light sheetmetal, like little copper or brass shielding boxes for RF stuff and low-level audio. I suppose it wouldn't be hard to make one.

Reply to
Don Foreman
[...]

Thus the lord gave us scotch locks. (: I had to repair a harness that had been mauled by someone who obviously loved those things. I now hate them with a passion.

Reply to
B.B.

Scotchlok taps are good only for wires that are the right gauge, and are NOT subject to movement or vibration and are NOT heavily loaded. And are accessible in case they go bad - that's an important point...

Executive Industries used Scotchlok taps to build the wiring harness extensions for their motorhomes. We went away for a camping weekend, and found out on arrival we had one working taillight and that was it.

They wired that cap sitting on a table and then installed it.

I spent the whole f**king weekend squirmed up inside the very hot rear fiberglass tail-cap "trunk" of the motorhome standing on stacked milk crates, and changing out all the f**king open-circuit Scotchloks feeding the tail lights and back marker lights for barrel crimps.

The really fun ones were over the bathroom window, which had a fiberglass tunnel "dormer" out the back cap, and the triple-bar marker lights were over the top of that - For a while I actually considered removing the whole rear cap to get access - then realized what a pain in the ass /that/ would be...

They are my 'last resort' splice, for obvious reasons.

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Reply to
Bruce L. Bergman

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