Wiring Tips, Tricks and Traps

Good reliable automotive wiring depends mainly on the integerty of the electrical connection whether the connection or "joint" be a power feed or a ground return. Most builders lack the quality crimpimg tools necessary to create a gas-tight seal at the joint. In many cases, you may find that the previously crimped ring terminal has fallen off in your hand even though the crimp looked good. To overcome this difficulty, we designed our PDP-1 fuse panel to use a "lugless" system of attachment often seen in large manufacturing and computer facilities. This process is accomplished by using terminal strips which have an opening to accept a bare wire which is then held in place by a screw which forces a clamp over the bare copper. The idea is to strip the wire insulation back just enough (about 1/8") to allow the copper to be completely inserted into the terminal strip opening while the protective wire insulation remains on the outside to eliminate "shorts" between the terminals or to ground.

Additionally, we have installed heavy duty solid copper studs to bring power into the fuse panel. These studs use heavy ring terminals and #10 gauge high temperature "SXL" wire. We ask the builder to cut the wire to length, strip off 3/8" of the insulation, slip a small piece of heatshrink over the wire, crimp on the ring terminal and solder. When the joint has cooled, the heatshrink is pushed over the ring terminal barrel and is shrunk by a heat gun or lighter. These ring terminals are installed over the copper studs and are locked in place by our special stainless steel lock-nuts. Since we use only high temperature wire, the insulation will not be damaged by the heat. Beware of using standard (PVC) wire because the insulation will peel back and allow for a short after soldering.

Splices are often necessary when joining two or more wires. The best way to make a splice is to crimp the wires to a copper splice, solder and heatshrink. Butt splices (red, blue and yellow) are fairly effective when crimped properly. You could put some heatshrink over the butt splice for added protection.

Heatshrink tubing varies widely. The standard material will shrink down to 1/2 it's original size and contains no sealant. While the good stuff (expensive) will shrink down to 1/3 it's size and contains special sealing material to keep out water and other comtamiants. We use the sealant on splices outside the passenger compartment.