Curly, et al. I have used crimp connector successfully for years. The crimper that I use is a Thomas and Betts staking crimper. This has a small 'tang' in the crimping area that welds the connector and the wire together by pressure. Makes the crimp almost impossible to undo, though I tried it out of curiosity once, very difficult and a mess when finished. The 'standard' crimpers are worthless, all that they do is squeeze the connector tube into a sort of oval. To be complete, the join must be a gas-tight connection. Electricians use pliers, usually Klein Tools, or some copy made in a faraway place, to crimp copper caps over wires for grounds, (usually). So, with the correct tool, crimping butt connectors does work. There are also butt connectors that have glue in them to form an heat activated shrink seal after crimping. I have used that type to attach the wires to a well pump that still works as designed, lo these many years. Confused yet? YMMV Fred
________________________________________ From: Mercedes <mercedes-boun...@okiebenz.com> on behalf of Curly McLain via Mercedes <mercedes@okiebenz.com> Sent: 08 December 2015 15:37 To: Mercedes Discussion List Cc: Curly McLain Subject: [MBZ] Butchers: Best splice for high current wires This apparently didn't go out, but seems some may have seen it. In case all y'all have not been following the saga of POSitive, the "new" 87 300D, tonight I found the butchers had cut all the wires in back of the ign switch, rather than umplug the plug and plug it into a new switch, and hat would have been unnecessary had they simply replaced the ign key lock with a new key lock. One wire was burned clear through, one hanging by a few strands and a couple more fell out of the butt connectors when I started moving things around. the wires on plug were cut very near the plug, so the first order is to get another plug with wires long enough to splice. that brings up the question: What is the best way to splice the wires to allow full current? Several are roughly 10 GA and the purple is maybe 20 ga. If there was room to get the harness out to work on it, I'd solder em with a torch. There is no room for that under the dash. We know the heater burned 25 amp fuses, leading to the separate 30 amp strip fuse under the hood. The butchers used crimp on butt connectors, leading to the heater/acc wire burning through and others are less than good connections. The best solution is to take out the whole donor harness and replace it, but I have the feeling that would be perhaps worse than an evapectomy. Some splice should work. I don't thing there is enough room in there for wire nuts. Wire nuts allow near full current with little loss. What's the best way to splice wires without taking up a lot of space or soldering the splice? _______________________________________ http://www.okiebenz.com To search list archives http://www.okiebenz.com/archive/ To Unsubscribe or change delivery options go to: http://mail.okiebenz.com/mailman/listinfo/mercedes_okiebenz.com _______________________________________ http://www.okiebenz.com To search list archives http://www.okiebenz.com/archive/ To Unsubscribe or change delivery options go to: http://mail.okiebenz.com/mailman/listinfo/mercedes_okiebenz.com
