Thread: Looking for a unobtrusive crimping method.

I am going to have to re-splice an entire dash cluster harness fairly soon and Im looking for some good methods or products to use so I dont end up with a huge cluster of butt connectors.

All the wires were cut to the same length so I cant do butt connectors cause it will be a huge mess. I dont want to solder that many wires either. I was looking at uninsulated butt connectors as they are much thinner.

I pulled out the harness and noticed that the factory splices use a tiny U shaped fold over style crimp but I cant find anything similar.

Anyone got any ideas?

Solder... unless you want to spend the money on a proper crimp tool which I haven't seen anyone here ever do.... Cause they are expensive.

Solder it anyway even if you had the proper crimp tools.

Use shrink wrap too and twist the wires together in such a way that it looks continuous. I've been planning on making a How To for a long time. Hard to explain without pics.

Edit: This is what I'm talking about. http://www.mmxpress.com/technical/connections.htm

trust me, soldering wires will be faster than crimping... you'll be slow at it at first, but then after the 4th-5th one it'll be a lot quicker. it'll be cleaner as well. none of that extra bulk from crimping things together, then electrical taping it, etc... soldering would be the best choice especially for doing the gauge cluster.
do each wire one at a time so you don't confuse them. always check and double-check the correct wiring when soldering though. good luck!

I've been using these and love them
http://www.allproducts.com/manufacture13/uta/Product-200955165645.html

you can get them at home depot

Bingo! solder sleeves. just takes a heat gun and your done. we used these extensively in the u.s. air force because "real soldering" takes a bit of skill

Freaking win, I gotta get me some.

Nice Keo. VERY nice.

can eny one find or make a female plug to go into the original harness so we can just connect it to that. i was going to take the back of and old cluster and cut out the plugin and make that into a female plug but i thank it would be to much of a hassle