12 replies to this topic

[lewBlew]

The brown wire which goes to the solenoid from the loom - it ends in a slightly wider than usual, fully insulated female spade connector with a pin in it to lock it (also a browny colour but a bit lighter). Where can I get a replacement from? The pin has snapped off today due to old-age, and the wire now keeps slipping off.

 

[finch661]

i was going to suggest halfords for the terminal, but not sure about the pin lock?

Edited by finch661, 22 January 2014 - 01:59 PM.

[tiger99]

Unless you have the proper and very expensive crimp tool, don't try to fit a new terminal at home. It carries a high current, and if crimped with a cheap tool, or much worse, pliers, it will be extremely unreliable. Failure here can fry the alternator and other electrical items, as there will be a large transient overvoltage if the engine is running at the time. And, the car will not go....

 

Best to get a proper auto electrician to make up a new wire, crimping both ends with their proper tool. They will not charge a huge amount for a quick and simple job, if you unwrap the loom, extract the old wire and take it to them. Get some loom tape and re-wrap it afterwards. Or measure the length, and simply add the new wire outside the loom, with Ty-wraps or similar, until you have time to do it up properly.

[lewBlew]

Really?? Sounds a bit OTT. How about soldering the connector on? Halfords don't do ones with pins, but Ebay and a local place does.

[Dan]

I always make harness repairs to original spec myself, OE non-insulated crimps with separate boots, the right terminals for switches and fuse holders etc. The proper hand tool (a hydraulic tool is not required) for closing them costs about £30.00. That's all you need to make odd repairs, the £70.00-£400.00 versions available are for series production and designed to close thousands of crimps per day for many years. I have tools for regular crimps and for bullets and stripping and as said you do need the right ones but they aren't huge money. The only things I don't really have tools for are flags and battery terminals, you really have to spend proper money for battery crimp tools because they take a lot of closing. You can easily do this repair yourself. The proper crimp tags cost pennies and the tools will cost you less than an electrician. Do you have a picture of this locking pin? I imagine you are talking about the clip inside a Faston type crimp tag but it would be good to know.

[tiger99]

I had a car once, which suffered two electrical breakdowns. There were exactly two wires which could stop it, or prevent it starting, the feed to the fuel solenoid, and the feed to the glow plugs (it was a diesel). The previous owner had crimped them both with a cheap tool, and predictably they both failed. I have a very great deal of professional experience in high reliability systems,  have seen many failures on other people's cars, and have on many occasions seen what happens when cheap crimp tools are used, sometimes causing fires, so on this very rare occasion I have to disagree completely with Dan. Crimping is a very exacting process, and if it fails to form the necessary pressure weld, it will fail. I don't think that an electrician should charge more than £10 to crimp a wire, off the car. A proper tool is more likely to cost £200 than £60.

 

As for soldering, are you good enough at it, and is your iron large enough to do this, bearing in mind that it is a fair mass of copper? The joint will also be brittle, made worse by solder wicking up the wire. Solder is NEVER used for cable terminations nowadays in areas of high vibration. If you do use solder, you really must reinforce it with at least two layers of heatshrink.

[lewBlew]

I always make harness repairs to original spec myself, OE non-insulated crimps with separate boots, the right terminals for switches and fuse holders etc. The proper hand tool (a hydraulic tool is not required) for closing them costs about £30.00. That's all you need to make odd repairs, the £70.00-£400.00 versions available are for series production and designed to close thousands of crimps per day for many years. I have tools for regular crimps and for bullets and stripping and as said you do need the right ones but they aren't huge money. The only things I don't really have tools for are flags and battery terminals, you really have to spend proper money for battery crimp tools because they take a lot of closing. You can easily do this repair yourself. The proper crimp tags cost pennies and the tools will cost you less than an electrician. Do you have a picture of this locking pin? I imagine you are talking about the clip inside a Faston type crimp tag but it would be good to know.

 

Yes it's the little locking tag inside the female spade connector.

 

 

I had a car once, which suffered two electrical breakdowns. There were exactly two wires which could stop it, or prevent it starting, the feed to the fuel solenoid, and the feed to the glow plugs (it was a diesel). The previous owner had crimped them both with a cheap tool, and predictably they both failed. I have a very great deal of professional experience in high reliability systems,  have seen many failures on other people's cars, and have on many occasions seen what happens when cheap crimp tools are used, sometimes causing fires, so on this very rare occasion I have to disagree completely with Dan. Crimping is a very exacting process, and if it fails to form the necessary pressure weld, it will fail. I don't think that an electrician should charge more than £10 to crimp a wire, off the car. A proper tool is more likely to cost £200 than £60.

 

As for soldering, are you good enough at it, and is your iron large enough to do this, bearing in mind that it is a fair mass of copper? The joint will also be brittle, made worse by solder wicking up the wire. Solder is NEVER used for cable terminations nowadays in areas of high vibration. If you do use solder, you really must reinforce it with at least two layers of heatshrink.

 

In the end we managed to re-use the existing connector by squashing it ever so slightly with some pliers so it doesn't fall off unless it's pulled off.

[Ethel]

It won't hurt to arrange/support wiring so it's not hanging by the terminals. Copper fatigues easily so it's best not to create a "hinge" to concentrate any flexing, it's the same idea that says solder terminals are a bad idea on cars.

[greenwheels]

Saw one of these crimpers at an autojumble the other day http://www.amazon.co...ef=pd_cp_auto_2

  and  after reading this thread I almost wish I had bought it.  Is it a good one? or what do you recommend.

Edited by greenwheels, 22 January 2014 - 04:50 PM.

[tiger99]

Good point, Ethel!

 

On a certain French van (with apparently Italian and US clones, you probably know which), some idiot had designed a very nice multiple earth point which took maybe 6 or even 8 push-on terminals. Of course, it was mounted by ONE lug to ONE bolt in the inner wing, and the van not being the smoothest-running vehicle around, you can guess what happened! Utterly inexcusably, they had returned BOTH headlights to the one earth point, so just like a Mini, with the unsafe common earth, both headlights went out, as well as the engine stopping and various other things too. But they had paid lip service to the utterly incompetently drafted Construction & Use Regulations, without understanding the underlying intent, because there was duplication of wiring and fusing on the live side of the headlights.

[Ethel]

It looks like it's for pre insulated terminals. Check out one of the online auto electrics companies for a better idea. 

 

Autosparks possibly have the most relevant product range for Mini owners.

[tiger99]

greenwheels,

 

That crimper, even at the usual price, is borderline, but even then is only of use if it is for the exact size of terminals and wire that you are using. It is at least a ratchet type, so will always complete a full crimp cycle, but there is no guarantee that the exact dimensions of the dies or the pressure exerted are correct. It will however be better than the "plier" types, which ought not to be legally sold as crimp tools, because they do not form a proper crimp.

 

If you do use one of these, get some spare crimp terminals, and wire, of the same sizes you are using, and run some tests before and after your wiring job. Crimp a joint, put the terminal in the vice (not clamping on the crimp area of course) and apply a straight pull to the wire until it breaks. If the wire breaks, your exact combination of tool, terminals and wire is good, if the wire pulls out of the terminal, it is inadequate.

[Dan]

That crimp tool has dies for pre-insulated crimps and because it's Draper other dies aren't available. It's more or less useless, pre-insulated crimps are nasty and this tool won't close real crimp tags. The proper tool looks like this one but has different dies with it, and preferably settable depth as well as pressure. It will probably be unbranded, most real wireman tools are (except CK small and Knipex large cutters, can't do without them!).