I spent most of the day at Winslow's yesterday working on wiring and steering issues. The biggest wiring issues were a cut off headlight switch plug and a cut off front-clip plug. The headlight harness had 12 wires to chase down and the front harness had 8! What a mess! I made a couple of charts to help me trace the wires and had copies of the wiring schematics with me. All connections were soldered and covered with heat-shrink for longevity. The wires had salt corrosion under the insulation so all connections had to be sanded with emory paper before the solder would stick! Ack!! Many of the wires didn't just go to one place so that complicated things. It would have been pretty easy if the front harness connector wasn't cut because 4 of the wires ran there and could have been identified by the pin in the connector. Oh well, at least it is done. I didn't have the proper connector for the front-clip so I just tagged all of the wires for later use. The only thing left to do is wrap the harness in tape, but I am going to make double sure it works first!!
The steering required a good, used drag link to be swapped in since some bone head beat on the threaded end to get it loose and mangled the whole thing. I broke out the 3/4" drive socket set and retrieved one from a parts truck. Then, one of the pressure lines going to the PS ram had a cut in it so I got one from a parts truck to replace it. The system is now complete. All I need to do is jack the front end up, fill the system, start the engine, and crank the wheel to bleed the air out. I was going to do it this time, but ran short on daylight.
Anyone have a parts truck with a good front clip plug on it? I need one please!
Will Wagner, the turbo pic is for you. That is the flange design. I also need the gasket which is PN 20511420. Thanks!!
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Chris Stansbury, founder of Chris' CUCV Homepage in 1998 and Steel Soldiers in 1999.
1985 AMG M998 HMMWV, under the knife
1992 BMY M925A2 - TRADED!!
1991 BMY M923A2, SOLD
Chris, you should consider crimping your connections. Soldering old corroded wires outdoors may not be reliable. The crimping action will "rub off" the surface coating and form a gas tight reliable joint. I have crimped virtually all my connections on both the 6x6 and 8x8 and they number in the hundreds with zero failures. Use heat shrink to finish and wrap your wire bundles with high quality vinyl tape.
Use bare, seamless "butt splice" crimp connectors, so that the finished job can be inspected.
All connections in the control box I sent you, were crimped with the exception of the Cannon connector ones with its solder cups (they weren't done by me anyway).
Soldering works well in a controlled environment, but may also melt wire jackets.
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Bjorn
MEP-018A (needs new generator head)
Avatar: XM757 in OK prepared for 1,000 mile trip home. Part of 6,000 mile journey in 2006.
1968 M49A2C modified with 1960 M756A2 truck bed and 1975 HIAB 765A knuckleboom, exhaust brake, VIC-1 and more.
1969 Ford XM757 8x8, 5-ton Pershing 1A truck tractor...the "improved MV".
"Some things can't be made better, just differently......a lot of things actually"
Good point, Bjorn. I used the bare crimp connectors/heat shrink in some of my splices behind the dash. I was going to crimp the headlight wires if the solder didn't take. It took fine after I sanded all of the wires down to the core. My fear was that any remaining salt corrosion would contaminate the crimp connector and degrade the connection inside the joint. I used a butane powered torch with a soldering tip to ensure good heat and penetration. We'll see what happens next weekend when I get a chance to put power to the harness.
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Chris Stansbury, founder of Chris' CUCV Homepage in 1998 and Steel Soldiers in 1999.
1985 AMG M998 HMMWV, under the knife
1992 BMY M925A2 - TRADED!!
1991 BMY M923A2, SOLD
Just FYI for future - I have used Crimp style Compression Connectors with integral shrink-wrap style coatings which "melt" a water-tight sealant inside of the connector when heated and shrunk. I used these when I was doing custom wiring for hot rods and trailers. Havn't had the need to do a major rewire on one of my MV's yet. They seemed to work great. I can try to track down the supplier/manufacturer if you're interested.
Dave
The Following 2 Users Say Thank You to paradeduty For This Useful Post:
This solder flux will clean the dirtiest of wire. Once you complete the soldering operation, take a clean cloth with isopropyl alcohol and wipe the solder joint. Once the alcohol has evaporated shrink the heat shrink.
Thanks guys! I haven't seen the alcohol clean-up flux before. That's very slick.
One thing I worry about is how far up the wire the salt corrosion goes. I wonder if it will continue to corrode for years to come? I may eventually do a complete harness swap if I can find a NOS one. I found a good used harness, but man, what a project to swap it out!! For now, I'll just keep on fixing this one. I know I will have to chase down grounding issues for a while.
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Chris Stansbury, founder of Chris' CUCV Homepage in 1998 and Steel Soldiers in 1999.
1985 AMG M998 HMMWV, under the knife
1992 BMY M925A2 - TRADED!!
1991 BMY M923A2, SOLD
This solder flux will clean the dirtiest of wire. Once you complete the soldering operation, take a clean cloth with isopropyl alcohol and wipe the solder joint. Once the alcohol has evaporated shrink the heat shrink.
Nice!
This is what the I&E guys at my work were describing but couldn't remember the specifics about - I wish we would have had some for the alternator harness... Chris, we might want to cut out and re-do that one heavy alternator wire with this as I am still not convinced that the solder really took.
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Chad Stansbury
Ol' Blue 1952 M37 w/w
Nice!
This is what the I&E guys at my work were describing but couldn't remember the specifics about - I wish we would have had some for the alternator harness... Chris, we might want to cut out and re-do that one heavy alternator wire with this as I am still not convinced that the solder really took.
Good thought. Better to do it now in the field than later on the side of the road somewhere
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Chris Stansbury, founder of Chris' CUCV Homepage in 1998 and Steel Soldiers in 1999.
1985 AMG M998 HMMWV, under the knife
1992 BMY M925A2 - TRADED!!
1991 BMY M923A2, SOLD
1985 M1008 w/'hyrail' gear, EX-Ft Stewart Railroad
1983 M915a1 'Rosie'
1980 MKT-75A
1979 M967 Refueling tanker
1970 M818 'Boxer' aka M818 of DEATH
1969 40ft USA Boxcar in OD green
1968 M101
1968 M270
19?? M543
1953 60ft Troop Train Kitchen car
1953 60ft 8 room Domitory car
1929 Plymouth 10 ton gas loco, EX-USN
