Last winter I had a ground problem on my suburban. specificly, the pcm ground was bad. I had to replace the ground wire terminals. I wanted to to the best job possible so I spent a couple extra dollars for the water proof terminals from Napa....they have solder and heat shrink built into the terminal. The idea is that you put the wire in, hit it with the heat gun and the heat shrink does its thing and the solder melts around the wire.

The problem with these things is that the wire never gets hot enough for the solder to bond to the wire.

All 4 water proof connectors easily pulled off of the wires that they were "soldered" to. Two had tell-tale burn marks from where they were shorting out.

I replaced them with the off the shelf tinned copper terminals and a healthy dose of copper anti sieze on all connecting parts. I also installed a direct ground lead to the ground terminal on the battery.

These 6.5's are good motors but they are easily sabbotoged by weak electrical connections.


STAY AWAY from those fancy heat shrink solder terminals...they will let you down when you least expect it.

if you are talking about GM weatherpak or GM metripac, it takes a special crimper to crimp the wire with that little green gasket thingy, and they don't usually pull out when crimped correctly.

I have never seen a solder type automotive terminal, all the heat shrink ones I have ever seen you crimp the wire then heat it to seal the connection.

nope, not a gm product. these things were on the spinny rack at napa

Yes, the napa ones are what I'm talking about, or any other auto parts store, automotive wiring is never soldered, solder (electrical) is not very strong it won't hold up in an automotive environment, thats why I bet your connectors are supposed to be crimped.

yeah they are crimps they seal ok but not worth the money in my opinion... like most other so called waterproof gadgets the seem to do more for holding the water in than keeping it out.

Crimps are for ease and simplicity of use, and because most people can't tell a roll of solder from a roll of bailin' wire - takes some skill to get a good solder joint, but solder guarantees a perfect, resistance-free electrical connection.

Your IP harness is crimped and soldered, as are your battery cables

if i have any wiring to do it is crimped and soldered if it is a quicky splice repair i keep a hand full of wire nuts of varios sizes to get me by. never had a properly solder joint give me any problem. maybe you need some cleaner(flux) on the joint before soldering heat the wire and the connector. it should draw the solder in. if it just rolls around on top it is either to cold or dirty . the solder should be melted by touching the metals you are soldering not the heat from the torch.

maybe they are supposed to be crimped, but the guy at napa said no when I asked. I couldn't see that there was enough material to crimp around the wire. The problem with using the heat gun on these connectors is that it doesn't get the wire hot enough to bond.

I'm thinking the guy at NAPA who told you not to crimp didn't know what he was talking about. I'm sure you just crimp them and there is no solder in them,
You don't want to solder any automotive connectors, the dissimilar metals in solder becomes highly corrosive when exposed to weather and it can also wick up the wire making it stiff and cause it to break as it tried to flex with the movement of the vehicle.
I always thought the people who said don't solder were crazy because I was always careful to not get to much on the joint but some of my old old solder connections are starting to show the corrosion.

I'm thinking the guy at NAPA who told you not to crimp didn't know what he was talking about. I'm sure you just crimp them and there is no solder in them,
You don't want to solder any automotive connectors, the dissimilar metals in solder becomes highly corrosive when exposed to weather and it can also wick up the wire making it stiff and cause it to break as it tried to flex with the movement of the vehicle.
I always thought the people who said don't solder were crazy because I was always careful to not get to much on the joint but some of my old old solder connections are starting to show the corrosion.

What type of solder where you using, Acid or rosen core??

What type of solder where you using, Acid or rosen core??

It was regular rosin core electrical solder. Thats why telco stuff is all punchdown blocks or wire wrapped, solder corrodes in damp/wet environments.

FYI - lead doesn't corrode - tin doesn't corrode - 60/40 lead-tin alloy doesn't corrode.

Lead slightly oxidizes - tarnishes? - when exposed to oxygen, thus the tin alloy for solder.

Copper corrodes when exposed to oxygen - and to H2O - and to sodium chloride - and sulphuric acid - hydrochloric acid de-oxidizes corroded copper, and will etch it away if exposed long enough.

Battery acid is mild sulphuric acid, which outgasses hydrogen when the battery is charging.

Resin flux is a de-oxidzer and protective inslulator - some oem's liberally coat the finished pcb assy's with resin flux to protect the un-tinned copper.

"Tinning" - coating, or plating with solder - protects copper from oxidation.

Reason for wire-wrapping and punch-blocks is real-estate and convenience - not enough space between terminations for time-consuming soldering procedures.

And, terminated connections in that style are easily removed and relocated - not always so with properly-terminated soldered connections.

Telco uses solid wire for connections, easy to 'punch' and wire-wrap - stranded wiring does not serve well in that application.

Solid wire is not even flexible, nor is it intended to be - it is for permanent installation service.

Install it, don't mess with it - except for re-termination, then be gentle.

Telco uses stranded wiring between the wall jack and the telephone, and between the base and the handset - the RJ connectors are permanent punch-block style

Stranded wiring can withstand more flexing, and some is designed to withstand extreme flexing - power cords, welding cable, premium battery cables, musical instrument cables, etc.

Bell, Agilent, and all with government contracts were long-ago required by EPA mandate to go to water-soluble flux for all soldering operations, where the flux is easily rinsed off immediately following the soldering procedure, while the work is still hot.

If the work cools the flux must be scraped off - not even a good idea - or reheated then flushed.

Guess what?

The flux is a mild solution of acid to de-oxidize the work pieces, which, tho water-soluble when heated, also out-gasses when heated, vapors settling on adjacent components and circuitry which, being cooler than the work joint, do not flush well, or at all.

Expose the assembly\piece to oxygen, and humidity - Voila!! - instant corrosion

Leave a glob of water-soluble flux on each connection, and you're guaranteed to lose the connection and probably the component, also.

Solution - conformal coating to prevent oxidation, dipped, dabbed, or spray-on.

Individual techie home-boys can still use resin-core solder for efficient work, but companies must use water-soluble flux in all soldering operations, or pay stiff penalties, and subect to goverment inspection of disposal technique.

As enine pointed out, soldering employs a concept known as 'wicking', where the solder flow follows the thermal front along the clean, de-oxidized copper conductor - the flow stops where the conductor temperature is below the melting point of the solder.

In wiring operations, if more heat is applied than necessary the solder can wick out past the desired connection, making the wire stiff, easy to break if flexed often, or repeatedly.

Also caused by applying too much solder for the application.

And that, of course, is where proper training and experience comes in to play - ya got yer solderers, and ya got yer daubers.

Risky business, soldering...............

any more anything is a splice case in our area is under dry air pressure to keep water out. yes there still is alot of exposed splices in the point of termination but in my experience the biggest reason for the crimp was for time saving and changeability. (dad worked for gte from '51 to '87 I worked for them from 78-92) the early cable was lead sheathed with paper insulation, crimping is the only way. anymore with ickey pic goo injected into the cable doubt if you could get it clean enough. now that fiber is on the way no more worries with corrosion. just my opionion. i do agree with letting to much solder go up the wire making it brittle.

Corrode isn't the right word for it and I can't find the article anymore which listed all the details as why, but I used to think the same, since I could solder decently and was able to prevent wicking and such then I was fine. I know its been a long controversary with the car audio guys, but someone where I found a big huge doc that was from a .gov study that said soldering = bad.
But I don't want to keep this discussion going as its off topic to the original question. Basically I was trying to say I think that the OP has crimp type connectors and not solder connectors which is why the wire pulls out easily since he's thinking that the connectors are soldering the wire in place.
Also I don't think those sealed connectors are needed in automotive applications, look at anything factory, they are all crimped and not sealed. Pull the plastic covering off your battery terminals and you will find a big old crimp terminal. Those connectors are made of a metal allow which resists rusting so there isn't any need for them to be sealed. its also interesting to note that GM no longer recommends toothed star washers on ground connections because they have improved the terminals to where they sort of bond to the metal like the telco wire wrapping.

As you may know, aircraft wiring is crimp-only - with reams of us-gov procedures for how to crimp - as is most of the wiring on\in vehicles.

The Injection Pump\FSD harness has been crimped and soldered since '96, and all the ground lugs and side-post battery cable terminals have the star-washer built-in, part of the lug itself.

Right, the battery cable lugs are crimped on, but, as late as '95, they were also soldered - take a big chisel, remove a crimped lug from a damaged cable to see that.

All the connector lugs and terminals are tinned, to prevent corrosion.

The molded-on plastic cover and the 'tinning' during the soldering process helped to retard oxidation, or corrosion, as it's known on unprotected copper\brass - it's that green stuff.

Soldering may have been eliminated, later, to improve the 'bottom' line' - I noticed battery cables were of many fine-strand wire construction, but seem to be of coarse-strand construction, now, not very flexible.

The seperate star-washer was eliminated , in most cases, to prevent puncturing of the conformal coating popularly known as 'the paint'.

Careful, kids - don't scratch the paint
Hey, you kids - keep those bikes away from the truck - don't wanna see any scratches on the paint.

Warranty considerations vis-a-vis the finish were mainly behind that decision on the star washers - the X- or XX-year no-rust-thru guarantee.

You can still find them inside the vehicle on unpainted surfaces, some surfaces even prepared for that consideraton.

The Japanese weather-pak connectors are, as indicated, weather-proof, and in several instances, the individual wires also have weather-pak collars crimped on, protecting the connections to\from the computer from engine-bay environment.

No concerns about hijacking the thread, here, enine - it's all about connectivity\protectivity, and good input for reference.

IIRC Battery terminals /starter cabling or any high amp draw item should not have soldered ends as the heat generated by lets say extended cranking causes enough heat in the cables/connections to melt the solder (causing poor connection) then it cools and you never knew that the connection had failed.
I've seen guys for years solder new battery ends on Army trucks, and I myself was guilty of this practice until I was enlightened on the reason to always crimp high amp draw connections
my 2 cents

i had my 80hp diesel john deere with a problematic starter connection . right out side the soliniod their was a cable that connected the soliniod lug to the windings in the starter. when i was cranking it more than usual this connection would get screaming hot. it was a factory crimp. solder didn't work even with tinning it. could not get metal clean enough and with the resistance incured it always melted anything i tried. finally took it to and old time starter man and he had a kind of spot welder contraption made out of who knows what on his bench. i told him my problem and pointed at the connection and he fused the connection with his spot welder and it did not heat much any more. and the tractor starts sooo much easier.

Soldering connections is usually noted by us shade trees as "better" because it appears to make a strong mechanical connection between two wires (forget the electrical part...by gum if they're touching they are conducting, right?)

Well of course...the above is true but also non-sense.

It is true that a good solder job can maintain a good mechanical connection providing the connection was good mechanical connection to begin with. In the end, providing a good mechanical connection through wire twisting, crimping, and strain relief, is the key to keeping the connection together.

Some good old fashioned liquid electrical tape can help seal out moisture.

Guess how ALL the connections inside of missles are made. No, not the RF connections, the electrical ones!!

Guess how ALL the connections inside of missles are made. No, not the RF connections, the electrical ones!!



yeah but missiles are hardly a model of quality and longevity...sometimes it's like those things self destruct.....):h

yeah but missiles are hardly a model of quality and longevity...sometimes it's like those things self destruct.....):h

Hopefully at the right time.........;)