Help crimping 8 gauge wire and insulated terminals ?

[Pat32rf]

A lot of people don't realize that regular 110v electric equipment is vibrating 60 times per second. This will loosen a lot of connections...

[Fisherman]

A lot of people don't realize that regular 110v electric equipment is vibrating 60 times per second. This will loosen a lot of connections...

Ya got that right, don't know how many loosened screws I've seen on receptacles and breakers and I'm not an electrician.

[smitty55]

I'm going to throw a little twist into this. I worked in the aviation industry as an instrument tech for close to forty years. The last 13 were at an airline where I actually got to see the planes in the hangar, and work on different components. So, to make a long story short, I set up an overhaul board for the ATR42 Turboprob engine harness. Close to 30 connectors, some with over 50 pins/sockets as well as lugs from 22 ga up to 4ga. and wires down to 24 ga. It just fits on a 4x8 board. Every single one of these connections is crimped, not one drop of solder. 8-14 ga wires are crimped with a hand powered heavy hydraulic crimper and 0-6 ga cables used a pneumatic crimper powered by an 80psi air line hookup. Remember, this is an aircraft engine, where standards are at their maximum. The only place solder is used is in some environmental splices with wire to wire connections in 18+ sizes. Those are the shrink sleeve splices with a solder ring in the middle and a plastic sealer on each end. Used with a heat gun. Tinning each wire first, which wasn't in the procedure, basically eliminated faults we saw on incoming harnesses that had never been through our shop.
Your car is no different I would think. Everything is crimped. Saying all this, my career since high school involved soldering everything on the repair instrumentation side of things. Things have changed since 60's technology big time.

So I asked an AME why connections aren't soldered anymore. The answer was that with soldering the joint is too stiff, and with the constant vibration in aircraft the wires are more prone to breaking at the solder joint than with a crimped connector. Go figure. Mind you, the main criteria is that the proper, certified crimpers must be used, a pair of pliers just doesn't cut it.

But here we're talking about a boat, not a plane, so lacking the proper tool, I would agree with some of the comments here and remove the insulation, crimp it with pliers or whatever and solder it with a torch or large 150W+ soldering iron. I would also tin the leads first. Just remember to put the shrink sleeve on the wire first. Been there, lol.

Cheers

[RTRonthefly]

I have seen large crimpers at Princes Auto.

Winner.. I was at Princess Auto on the weekend and found a really nice pair of large crimpers for $34. Picked up some and a pack of heat shrink tubing and had the new trolling motor all wired up and tested in under 20min.

Thanks to all for your input.