My painless harness needs to have the ends terminated. Can I use butt connectors? is this the best way to do this?:confused: :confused:

Yes you can use butt connectors. There are 2 different schools of thought on this. One is soldering terminals is better and stronger. (Which it is if you do it correctly and don't overheat the wires.) The other is that most people overheat the wires so your better off to crimp the end and not risk overheating the wires which makes them brittle.

Do you mean terminated as in dead-ends for wires that don't go to anything? Butt splices work just fine. You could even go as far as not stripping the insulation at the end of the wire. Crimp the splice over the insulation just in case something were to go up inside the other end of splice and possibly short.

Larry

If that is the case they do also make crimp butt ends as well.

That's right, I remember now. They look like a miniature wire nut that's used on residential wiring.


Larry

wow, 2 in one day?

NOTE TO SELF: I WILL GET A PICTORAL DONE ON HOW TO MAKE A PROPER SPLICE, AS WELL AS HOW TO SOLDER PROPERLY. I WILL DO IT THIS WEEK!!

Please oh please don't trrash a new harness with hardware store crimp connectors! They will haunt you till the end of time!

Use your old ones if they are good, use the old housings and buy new terminals from napa if you can. Bring them a sample and they can (might be some work to find a counter goy who WILL) find them and order them for you. Un less you feel like buying a hundred dollar crimper, SOLDER EVERY CONNECTION YOU MAKE!

In this post http://www.camaros.net/forums/showthread.php?t=94522 I tried to do a reasonable description of the right way to splice a wire.

I will get this done correctly for you guys and linked into the elctrical basics this week. I hate electrical problems, and poorly done new connections are usually more problematic than 40 year old properly done connections. :(

wow, thanks for the ideas...Jim I'll be waiting:thumbsup:

If I need to butt spice something in the harness, I'll use a bare butt splice terminal. I pack the terminal with dielectric grease, crimp it with a good ratcheting crimper and slip a piece of heat shrink over it when I'm done. For a 14 guage wire or larger you just about can't see the splice except for the heat shrink tubing and a slight bump in the middle. A proper set of ratcheting crimpers is necessary. Don't use those all-in-one crimper / strippers that come with the terminal assortments.