How to fix a rat’s nest of wiring.
So, you just picked up a brand new to you bike or your current steed has some shady wiring? Never fear this DIY will walk you through step by step with soldering, heat shrinking, and cleaning up the rat’s nest of wires that can be found on most used and abused sportbikes.
Soldering a connecting is very advantagious. It leaves a very neat and clean appearance and, when done properly, is a close to perfect of a connection as you can get between two wires.
First and foremost, I apologize for the low quality photos. The lighting in my garage is nowhere near ideal for cell phone photography (that will be another diy, muwhahaha). However, the pictures are used more for reference rather than detail. On the next go around I’ll bring the real camera and you can point and laugh while I shale like a whore in church trying to take a decent picture.
The first mess we will be dealing with:
The tools needed: soldering iron, solder, heat shrink, flux, wire strippers and other miscelanious hand tools.
On this bike someone had spliced the radiator fan wires by twisting them together and wrapping them in electrical tape. I have removed the plug and slid on the heat shrink.
Strip the sheilding back on the wires approx. one centimeter. Coat the exposed copper with soldering paste (flux) and twist the wires together.
Place your soldering iron on the bare wires and allow them to heat up for a few seconds then apply the solder between the tip of the iron and the wire. Allow the solder to “soak” in to the wire (this is where the flux becomes your new best friend). If you have done it properly you will have a nice shiny solder that looks like you dipped the connection into molten solder.
Now do the same to all the other wires you are soldering in the area.
Next slide your heat shrink over the connection and use a lighter or torch to heat up the tubing. It will contract when heat is applied and form a somewhat moisture proof seal. I like to heat shrink each individual wire and then heat shrink all the wires into one bundle. This adds a cleaner look and makes small clumps of wires a bit less likely to get tangled.
Behold! You have a nice, neat, and reliable connection!
Next up is a bit trickier. We have a splice just before a plug. This would be very difficult to strip the wires and solder together without screwing something up. What a mess!
Yep, there can’t be an easy way to fix this, right? Trust me, there is. Grab a sturdy needle or an eyeglass screwdriver set (unless you want to buy the special tool set for about $70 for snap on) and learn an easy trick.
Closely inspect the connector side of the plastic plug. Inside each cavity you will see the metal crimped on end of each wire. Look closer and you will see a plastic (or metal) tab the anchors the wire end into the plastic connector housing.
Practice makes perfect with this part. Gently pry the tab away from the wire end and softly pull the wire out the backside of the connector. Once you have removed all the wires from the connector, you will be left with this:
Since we are working so closely to the double crimp wire end; every millimeter of wire counts. Remove the plastic sheild from the but connector to expose the metal crimp inside.
Now solder and heat shrink each of the wires.
Do you remember which socket each wire goes in? it is always helpful to write this information down. If I don’t have a manual handy I’ll draw a diagram of the connector being viewed from the wire side as this is the side of the connector you will be pushing the wire back through.
Making sure you have the orientation and cavity number correct. Push the wires back into their sockets until you hear them click. Give a gentle tug to make sure they have properly seated in the cavity. Now stand back and marvel at your skills. This looks a thousand times better than butt connectors and will last much longer.
There you have it. Next time we’ll go over a few other things such as fixing a wire that the sheilding is chaffing on and what to do when some bone head cuts off the clutch switch plug and pitches it in the trash can. Douche bag…
Did you ride to work today? I did.
To be continued...
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Originally Posted by .Cheetah.
....... Doc is my hero.
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