1973 Torino Tribute Restoration

Solder and heat shrink is the only way to go. I twist them together, though, then solder and use the black heat shrink tubes...never saw a butt splice before.

 

We used that in the Army, without the heatshrink, of course. Its a smooth type of joint, giving good contact between copper strands. The heatshrink cleans it up nice.

 

From observation, I think I will stick with my method. May be counter intuitive, I don't know, but, I feel that the twist and then the solder running through the stands is better than the butt splice. The black shrink tubes look neater, too, and require less heat IMHO. The pic shown looks like it took a lot of heat to shrink those ends and bubbled up the original wire. To each his own, I guess.

 

I looked at the link after my comment. They're using a metal solderable chunk, which we only used on large cables, not the regular wiring (14 to 20 gauge wire). There's a place for those, especially on the newer (post 2000 vehicles) where they're using 24 and even 30 gauge thinwire. These wires are so thin that if you twist them, you lose a strand. On wires below 22 gauge, you can safely lose a strand or two and still maintain the proper resistance.

I usually do the twisted joints where there's only 2 to 4 wires involved, otherwise (6 to 12 wires) I stagger the joints to get a clean (but 'fat') harness. I use a tributary joint (bare the main wire, but don't cut it) and splice a branch by coiling around the main, then solder, IF the main wire is a resistor type, OR there's just no extra slack in it, to do it.

The Butt joint we did was where you stripped both cut wire ends, without twisting, and push them into each other, smoothing the wire strands and soldering. Only in tight harnesses that had to pass through a hole. No strength involved. If it was a big set of wires, we'd wrap a section of cotton or nylon rope (more like thin edge ribbon) to help ensure harness strength.

 

That bubble is the glue that's inside the heatshrink oozing out. It looks perfect. You use a heat shrink gun, no flames to fry anything, or hot soldering irons with which to burn oneself, the pet, the carpet, children...

The accompanying article has some great info about wire splicing and electrical repairs.

 

Oh....I didn't see the link, Andy....thanks Did I understand you to just say that you don't solder?

 

Heat gun, no more than 600° they say.

 

Thanks guys, yall really know your stuff! Andy the burn the carpet, kids, cat (ok added that one), etc was pretty funny!

I may have a lead on a correct wiring harness, but if it doens't pan out I'll use this method. Thanks again!

 

The back seat is done! My seat covers I ordered arrived this week and I figured I'd give it a try to recover the seats myself. With a little patience the covers went on easily. I removed the old vinyl and checked the springs for any breaks and luckily no breaks and the foam padding was still in pretty good shape. I started to add a lil more padding, but figured in order to keep with the "old school" theme I decided not too. They look just like I remember, but I went with tweed versus all vinyl mainly because I couldn't find the correct vinyl I wanted. But anyway the back seat is done and now I need to work on the front seat.

Here are a couple photos:

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I gotta tell ya, GPD....you got more energy than a nuclear power plant! And more balls than a PGA golf tournament!
NICE JOB!!!!

 

Dam man, awesome job!

 

They look more like real upholstery that you had made, not seatcovers. Either way, they look perfect.

Up here, the thin rods that hold the D-rings usually rust out and weaken a lot. No sags in yours, that's for sure. Nice results.

 

Norm, they actually are new upholstery, not just slip on's. I ordered them from automotiveinteriors.com. Great quality and reasonably priced. I worked on the Driver's seat yesterday, but didn't get it finished. Should wrap it up this week sometime. My bumpers should be done this week too, but we shall see.

Thanks guys for the kind words! :2_thumbs_up_-_anima

 

Hard to get those D-rings in the back, huh? Times like that you wish you had small fingers and 4 other hands.

 

You're right! I did have a hard time pulling the material while loading up a hog ring in the pliers while clasping onto the listing wire all at the same time.

For some reason the front seat seemed a lil harder too, but they are both covered now. They match the old design I wanted so I am happy!