Welded factory splice under dash

65Fury440

65Fury440

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So it was a beautiful day in FL, I finally get around to doing the ammeter bypass on my 65 today.

My wiring was a disaster. The previous owner, (Butch McHakensplice), thought that the proper way to make 2 wires connect, was a twist and some tape. I took out a few splices, and straightened out the rat's nest around my bulkhead connectors.

I found my factory splice under the dash, Hoe Lee chit. Who thought THAT was a good idea. The 50 year old tape was that fabric electrical tape, it was literally hanging there.

You mean to tell me, all the electrical engineers at ChryCo could not come up with a better/faster/cheaper way to do that?

I can picture a room full of old gruff engineers sitting around a table, smoking cigars, approving the electrical system for the 65 Fury. "Yup, that looks good, lets stamp the plans approved".

A younger engineer with a brush cut and pencil protector pipes up-"hey guys, don't you think we could eliminate the solder job wrapped in tape?".
The older engineers slam him immediately "Don't start telling us how to do things punk, you just graduated", "yea we did it this way for 40 years, if it ain't broke dont fix it".

The young engineer just sits there, stewing and rejected. In his mind he's thinking, "you dinosaurs will be retired in 20 years, one day I'm going to control engine combustion mixture with a computer".

Anyways, I used a big wire nut, problem solved!!
 
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It seems to be a common occurrence to have the wiring spliced and hacked in our cars. I've had to repair a couple of the harnesses in my car, replacing some wires and eliminating bad splices.

The welded wire splice really isn't bad. The tape insulation wasn't meant to last 50 years though. There are other ways to do it, and perhaps Chrysler should have done it differently, but if it's in good shape, I rewrap it with regular 3M electrical tape and then the harness gets wrapped with non-adhesive tape made for wiring harnesses.

Wire nuts? Growing up helping my master electrician Dad taught me that wire nuts aren't a great choice for stranded wire. They are used. Most home light fixtures are stranded wire and the accepted attachment to the solid house wire is wire nuts. The issue is that to use them correctly, you have to twist them tight and that becomes a little harder to do a stranded wire without damaging the strands of wire.

The problem with using wire nuts in a vehicle is you now bring vibration into the mix. Wire nuts can back off or loosen, especially with stranded wire and any amount of movement or vibration. They really aren't made for that application.

A better fix would involve splicing the wires together, solder and shrink tube. Google "Lineman's splice", "Western Union splice" or even "NASA splice".
 
A better fix would involve splicing the wires together, solder and shrink tube. Google "Lineman's splice", "Western Union splice" or even "NASA splice".

I'm cool with soldering wires, the problem with that junction is the accessibility. With the left gauge cluster out,there was hardly room to get my hand back there to strip the wires.

I opted to eliminate the main wire into the ammeter.The wire coming out of the ammeter, to the splice was melted.

I ran a new wire in from the starter relay lug to the splice.
The splice feeds the fuse box, headlight switch, and the volt meter. There are 4 wires with these feeds, plus the main wire coming in.
On a bench, yours truly could make that connection, under the dash, it's out of my pay grade.

I get ya on the wire nut. My solution is a car stereo lug, I didn't have one laying around yesterday.

PS anyone shrink tube multiple wires like in the welded splice?
 
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114 pages on splicing a wire? No wonder it's been 47 years since NASA has done anything significant.
 
65Fury440 said:
So it was a beautiful day in FL, I finally get around to doing the ammeter bypass on my 65 today.

My wiring was a disaster. The previous owner, (Butch McHakensplice), thought that the proper way to make 2 wires connect, was a twist and some tape. I took out a few splices, and straightened out the rat's nest around my bulkhead connectors.

I found my factory splice under the dash, Hoe Lee chit. Who thought THAT was a good idea. The 50 year old tape was that fabric electrical tape, it was literally hanging there.

You mean to tell me, all the electrical engineers at ChryCo could not come up with a better/faster/cheaper way to do that?

I can picture a room full of old gruff engineers sitting around a table, smoking cigars, approving the electrical system for the 65 Fury. "Yup, that looks good, lets stamp the plans approved".

A younger engineer with a brush cut and pencil protector pipes up-"hey guys, don't you think we could eliminate the solder job wrapped in tape?".
The older engineers slam him immediately "Don't start telling us how to do things punk, you just graduated", "yea we did it this way for 40 years, if it ain't broke dont fix it".

The young engineer just sits there, stewing and rejected. In his mind he's thinking, "you dinosaurs will be retired in 20 years, one day I'm going to control engine combustion mixture with a computer".

Anyways, I used a big wire nut, problem solved!!
Click to expand...



They could have, but then Butch McWirewelderguy would have been laid off or at the very least sent to the bench to be paid a fair wage for doing nothing. At least this way he kept his job. Then there would have been the expense of hiring and training Butch McSpaceAgeWireSplicer. In the long run it was probably cheaper for ChryCo to just weld that splice than got through all that rigmarole.
 
Attention to detail is how we got to the moon. I'm used to weeding through procedures like that to find the wisdom. There's good stuff there, just gotta learn what to skip over.
 
Is this what your splice looked like (obviously with 50 y/o tape and crud)?

splice.jpg
 
65Fury440 said:
Negative, 2 wires facing one way, one facing the other with some solder on it and old old tape wrapped around it.
Click to expand...

I don't think that's a factory splice then... The picture I posted was an ultrasonic weld, and that's what they would have used, even back then.

The ultrasonic weld is automated, no time to heat up wires with a soldering iron in a production situation.
 
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I like volt meters. tells you your battery is charging and no high amperage going through a cheap gauge ready to burn your pride and joy to the ground. I am going to bypass my amp gauge on my fury.
 
This picture from their site is an ultrasonic weld (albeit older and grungier than the one I posted)
amp-ga25.jpg

It doesn't use lead solder, it just melts the copper together. If there is any silver/gray-colored lead solder, especially without a mechanical connector, that's a homemade repair. Regardless, I still would imagine the 50 y/o tape would crumble once disturbed, so better that you re-do it.
 
Maybe sometime in the future a new under dash harness will be in the cards. Just a tough pill to swallow at the moment.
 
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