Starting to work on my 3.4 swap... but I have some harness wires that have been cut by the previous owner.

A few are of the "shielded" variety. Basically, the wire is wrapped in what looks like tin foil just below the outer coating. Perhaps for heat protection or to prevent electrical interference. Wires go to things such as the crankshaft position sensor, knock sensor, O2 sensor...

How does one go about splicing a wire like that? Maybe you just loose a small part of the shielding at the new connection... or maybe you can wrap some shielding around the wire after the new connection has been made?

 

id sauter it. splicing only is too loose of a connection. a couple of my wires are spliced very cheaply with only black tape. i would sauter them, but my sautering iron broke in the move up here, and i havent replaced it. i thknk im just gonna invest in a new harness if i decide to keep this engine anyway. sauter is a much better connection than just a simple splice. sauter it, then yeah wrap it in heat resistant material, then wrap it in electrical tape. if you do it right, it will be hard to tell that you did anything.

 

Definitely solder the wires, especially if it's your engine. But, what sort of heat resistant material would you put back over the spliced section of wire?

 

I may be guilty of using the wrong terms.

When I said splice, I meant I would solder. Splice was to indicate two wires were being joined.

The shielding is more like a jacket around the wires. Thinner than tin foil, and in my opinion unsolderable. Almost like gold leaf... very thin stuff.

I guess my question is if there is a small break in the shielding... how big of a deal would that be?

Maybe Radio Shack or similiar sells a jacket material I could use to cover the connection.

Thanks for the ideas... keep them coming.

 

im fairly certain radio shack or even better Frys would have sheilding. i cabt tell you if how bad it is or isnt to have a small gap but might as well try your best to make it as close as possible

 

Yeah, I'm familiar with what the stuff is, I'm just not sure exactly what it's there for and how big a deal it is if you can put more of it around the wire. I was on board with ozzies earlier when he mentioned it was for heat shielding, but after I thought about it, I don't think that is what it's for. It's too thin to be any use for that. I think it's for electrical shielding, EMF type stuff. Now, while I believe that's what it's for and understand the principles of why it's there, I don't know how to go about soldering wires of that nature.

I have a question regarding the splice/solder/joint--are you putting wires back together where he cut them, or will you be soldering the shielded wire to a new wire that you will take off a spool? If it's to a new wire, I guess you may want to consider getting shielded wire for your new wire.

I'm at work right now. If I can stop someone in I&C, I'll ask them for some advice. But, we're in an outage right now at our plant, so I might not be able to find anyone because they're all out working.

 

just go to a muffler shop and tell em you want maybe 10 feet of heat resistant muffler/exhaust material. thats all ya want. hell, even header antiheat tape should work

 

I would just cut out the section of the heat tape you have to remove to acomplish the solder. Then place it inside the electrical tape you will be wrapping the finished connection with.

 

exactly. apalmer1, are you related to me? your thinking the same thing i was. .

 

I also think acting as a heat shield may not be the function. Basically, there are two wires, each in there own housing. then this shield around both... then all that in one single housing again. Seeing the last (outer) housing is plastic the heat shield theory kinda goes out the window.

I am simply reconnecting what was cut. No additional wire will be used.

This is more along the lines I was thinking... but there won't be enough material in the original wire. I'll need to get some from somewhere.

If for EMP protection, I just have to figure out who sells something that will work. We are talking about covering maybe 1/2" at the solder joint.

I guess my real question is whether or not leaving a 1/2" of "exposed" (no sheilding) wire will cause issues. I of course will have all joints wrapped in heat shrink or tape or both. Just worried about electrical interference.

 

Just splice, use heat shrink wrap, then wrap that with tin foil and heat shrink over all of it to make it nice and pretty. Done and done!