1973 Dodge Dart Swinger

Recently I had some trouble removing my steering column's bearing housing in order to get to the ignition key lock cylinder. As it turns out, I don't need to do that. Thanks for the walkthrough anyway Kevin

What I need now are the male and female wiring connectors for the ignition, located under the instrument panel right next to the steering column. (This is the white connector, not the blue one (which is the turn signal/hazards connector)). One of the wiring's connecting pins, the ignition hot, has become burnt/corroded. I wouldn't know how to clean it up because the burning/corroding might be inside the connector itself.

I can't go to a junkyard, I live in metropolitan New York where there are none. So that is out. I could just snip the connectors off and use wire nuts, but that is too ghetto for me. My Dad wants to get new connectors too.

Also, how would I put them on? Do they come with lengths of wire coming out of them, so you have to solder the old wire to the new wire?

Thanks for any help

I can't imagine you'd have any success scoring new wiring pigtails for that car. Some aftermarket companies sell the brass spade terminals individually, but you won't find the plastic connector housings new anywhere. (well maybe you can... standard sells some weird stuff, and I dont know how long that style of connector was used in later cars)

Your best bet is probably to find an old Chrysler out in the junkyard with a connector that has the same number of wires going through it, and cut it out. Then join it to your harness with perma seal butt connectors. Or, you can hit up one of the guys here for that connector. Quite a few of the members are parting out one car or another.

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I've been calling it as i see it for my entire life and that's not about to change. Take it or leave it.

It is tough to find the housings, but some of the little metal crimps are available from NAPA (but they must often order them, and you may have to nag them to look them up). With some patience, you can ~1/2 the time tease open an old crimp and reuse it if you can't find a replacement. The metal inserts were pretty standard for Mopar over many years and all types of connectors.

To the the metal connectors out of the housing requires special tools that depress the little ears so the connector can slide out. KD makes a universal tool that works pretty well, and Radio shack sells one that fits some Mopars; the latter was very inexpensive.

Use a good crimping tool - again, Radios Shack has one that works well and is inexpensive.

It is better to do that than lots of splices; on the TMC giveaway cars (www.tidewatermoparclub.com) I've often had to mix & match connectors. It is usually easy to find donor harnesses if you can find a junkyard; they don't need to be the right year or model (but usually must be Mopar) to provide these little parts.

It is best if you remove the harness from the car before you work on it; depending on what's in the way that can vary between being easy to very difficult.

If you can't and can't get the pins out and need to splice a whole new connector assembly on, I strongly recomend using *uninsulated* crimps
covered by 2 layers of heat shrink tubing. I avoid solder, in general, as it makes the wire brittle. Slide the heat shrink pieces on 1st, use a really good crimping tool, then use a hot air gun to shrink the tubing. The connection be similar to what the factory did and should last indefinitely if you do it carefully.

Do not use preinsulated crimps for anything but emergency repairs, and old electrical tape gets pretty nasty.

Many (most?) stereo shops don't do wiring well or carefully and it shows after a while; you need to do much better.

What does KD stand for?

K-D Tools.

Normally I would agree on the heatshrink and noninsulated butt connectors but with the advent of Perma-Seal you get the advantages of both. Its insulation is actually a heatshrink tubing with hot-melt glue coating the inside. You just crimp, and heatseal. I cant recall how many times Ive used an uninsulated butt connector and realised Id forgotten to slide the heatshrink on first.

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I've been calling it as i see it for my entire life and that's not about to change. Take it or leave it.

I agree that you must remember to slide the heatshrink on 1st, and if you only had 1 splice to do, you could use an insulated butt crimp.

However, when doing a lot of splices near each other (like for the steering column connectors), insulated connectors get to be pretty bulky and in the way, while the uninsulated connector with heatshrink has nearly the same diameter as the wire. They are far less likely to give trouble in the future and won't catch on things like the insulated connectors will.

If you do decide to use insulated crimps, stagger the splice points so you have some clearance between them.

very valid point and very good idea, I should have mentioned that. The Perma-seal connectors are a very good repair, but they are not nice to look at. Heatshrink tubing is also available with sealing glue on the inside, for the larger diameters at least.

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I've been calling it as i see it for my entire life and that's not about to change. Take it or leave it.

Anything's better than wire nuts! Thanks guys!

The reason you may experience "brittle wires" after soldering is that most people apply too much heat ( with an inadequate soldering gun or method) and way too much solder and the solder wicks up the length of wire. This makes the wire stiff where it is all solder soaked, then the transition from solder soaked to bare is a stress point where the wire flexes and breaks at a later time.
You need a big enough soldering gun so you can get on the connector, heat it FAST, apply small amount of solder and then get soldering gun off of connection. If you leave soldering gun on too long then wire heats up down its length and solder wicks up the wire. The other problem is too small of soldering gun or improper technique...... what happens is the connector will heat slowly and the heat travels up the length of wire because you hold soldering gun to connection for so very long to get it hot enough to melt solder. Proper technique is to heat it FAST, apply solder, and remove heat.

Zach,
Go to www.waytecwire.com. They carry a fine selection of auto wire and connectors. Most of the older mopars used the Packard Delphi 56 series connectors or some variation of that series. I would HIGHLY recommend investing in the proper crimp tool when you order terminal. Makes for a good solid crimp.

Minor error in the link...it should be: http://www.waytekwire.com/