Solder vs. Butt Connector on hot for Coil Mod

[Steve]

absolutely.
...if I was stuck with a bad crimp tool or had none, or didn't want to buy a +$60 tool ...

The good news there is that there is a perfectly good crimper available from Vintage Connections for $35. :encouragement:

Twisting pigtails and black tape will get ya home too.

I have done many strange "repairs" to get me home. The tricky part is to remember that what you did was intended to be TEMPORARY.
Just because it got you home does not mean that it's going to last.

.

 

[earlfor]

I got some 16G wire and wrapped it together per the video and it took 5 min of holding the solder gun to the wire to get this result. The solder just wouldnt melt. Since soldering isnt too successful, I'm thinking at this point I will just butt splice ( I have good crimp pliers) the wires and wrap well in electrical tape. Dont want to screw up the wiring with a bad solder job.
View attachment 54533

A good crimp is far superior to soldering. The marine industry does not allow soldered connections on yachts, only crimped. There is a reason for that. I don't solder any wiring on a bike electrical system.

 

[Fjbj40]

A good crimp is far superior to soldering. The marine industry does not allow soldered connections on yachts, only crimped. There is a reason for that. I don't solder any wiring on a bike electrical system.

Yup. Same as aerospace, soldering has pretty much not been used for many years now in harnesses, any wires which need repairs use environmental splices, no soldering allowed.

 

[80GS850GBob]

Do we have GS bat-signal somewhere? Anyone in IL who can help?

I'm a little too far north...but we should have 1 or 2 members down there as I recall....

 

[80GS850GBob]

This is helpful! Looks like my plug wires are epoxy'd into the coils so if I want to change the wires, the coils will have to be changed too. What kind of coils did you go with?

Thanks! I'm really excited for getting this thing on the road! First it needs to heat up a bit, this whole snowing in April thing, I am not a fan of. I'm assuming you are getting some of the same up in WI.

Oem Suzuki coil wire replacing.....you got a 50/50 shot at easy replacement....for me it was 75/25. Three wires came out fairly easy and the last one snapped off at the opening and fought me.
I'd suggest setting them in the freezer of a day or two like I did. Then pull and wiggle the wires and hope they pull out cleanly.....3 did for me. As I recall, the inner depth for wire insertion is toughly an 1 1/4" or so...and there's a spike in there that the wire has to pierce. My troublesome wire required the use of a brass tube, that I serrated with a file for some "tooth", and used my drill to slowly drill in.....straight around the wire. Once it was lossened I took a drill bit and turned it in via a small vice gripe to almost an inch deep....in the middle of the wire. Slowly pull out. Second time did the trick.
When a four wires are out buy new wire and cut to size...leave excess because you can cut some off but ya can't add it afterwards. I inserted about 2/3 of the needed length and smeared them, one at a time, with 30min epoxy....shove the wire in all the rest of the way and let dry. I made a depth gauge prior to wire insertion and marked the same depth on the wire so I knew how far in it had to go.
The hardest part is complete removal of the old wire....the neat part is all the different wires you can install in there...looks wise.

 

[benaqui24]

So I'm new to Suzuki but not electronics or Wisconsin motorcycles and I'll probably doing a rewire on the GS550L I just got since my display lights have a mind on their own. I like to solder and shrink wrap. or cheat with liquid latex($5) and cover(plastic wire wrap ~10$). Anyway there was a couple was to junction the 2 ends before soldering in this thread I just wanted to bring up.
Western Union - Cross with at least 1"/3cm and bend at 90*. then bring both opposing ends back along the other to coil on its opposing wire and wrap 3 or 4 times(wiki has a good pic). So that's about as strong as any crimp will get anyway. And then you add solder and hopefully tape/latex/plastic.
But with old wiring with almost no slack I like to do my irresponsible connecting method:
- strip 3/4 in or 2cm from both ends
- put 1"/3cm of appropriate shrink wrap on the convenient end.
- spread both ends of wire into 90* wings.
- line the ends up level and try to make them layer before using your thumb and forefinger to turn them in on direction and make them look like one wire.
- Solder that junction completly, and let cool.
- With a wire in each hand, give it a decent pull to make sure you weren't being dumb.
- slide the shrink wrap over the connection, and heat it up.(a 700 watt heat gun is like 20$usd and worth it. same for soldering iron and multi-meter)

Good Luck.

 

[jswhite]

Thanks everyone for the advice, I completed the coil mod and now she fires right up!