Finally a member here!

[VTWilly]

Hey all,
Well I've been lurking here for quite awhile now and figured I should finally sign up since I have just purchased my first willys.
I just got a 1955 Willys wagon 4x4, flathead 6 (pics below if I can figure it out).
Of course I have managed to already break it so expect to see me in the help section very soon, but I am super excited about my new truck!

[bmorgil]

Oh its a beauty! Welcome VT!

[gmwillys]

Welcome VTWilly! Glad you chose to join us.

Your '55 is a nice example and I like the use of the Maverick paint spear to break up the red.
We look forward to helping out where needed.

[5JeepsAz]

Love the color scheme! Welcome on in.

[TJones]

Welcome VT
That thing is spotless from the pictures, where in the world did you find that beauty??
If you broke something you came to the right place!!!
Between bmorgil, gmwillys and Larrbeard they can guide you through any repair big or small!!!

[LarrBeard]

Hey all,
Well I've been lurking here for quite awhile now and figured I should finally sign up since I have just purchased my first willys.
I just got a 1955 Willys wagon 4x4, flathead 6 (pics below if I can figure it out).
Of course I have managed to already break it so expect to see me in the help section very soon, but I am super excited about my new truck!
\

We saw the teaser - now you need to tell us what you broke.

Nobody laughs because we've been there, done that and have scars and t-shirts to prove it.

[VTWilly]

\

We saw the teaser - now you need to tell us what you broke.


Ok, well, now that I have poked around, it's not as horrible as I worried it was.. I think.
So, the story goes, I was driving it home for the first time. Drove for about 45 min, stopped and got gas, drove another half hour or so, stopped for lunch. Got back in, started it up, backed out of the parking spot and it completely died. 3+ hours from home. On second thought the long drive home was pretty optimistic, but since this will hopefully be my daily driver, a shake down ride wasn't a bad idea. Anyway, so we tried to jump start it figuring maybe a charging/battery issue (I am quite competent under the hood, with electrical being my major weakness). So after a few tries of it only running for 60 to 90 seconds at a go I noticed that the analog clock on the dash wasn't getting power, and that when it magically did get power back, the truck ran fine, until everything died again 60 seconds later.
So I got a u-haul and towed it home and what was supposed to be a 10 hour day, turned into an 18 hour day.

Yesterday I cleaned and re-seated all the connections under the hood and made sure I had good ground connections. I learned that whoever half re-wired the vehicle was nice enough to leave no more that half a millimeter of slack on all the wires.
When nothing else worked, my father-in-law suggested breaking out the multi-meter and checking power, everywhere. When checking power at the back of the ignition switch I got power back to the cab. Once I pulled the switch out of the dash, I let it hang (on the massive amount of slack I didn't have) and everything worked fine, I ran it up and down the road a few times, and the one time it died, I just fiddled with the back of the switch and it came all back up.
So I ran to Napa (probably now my new best friends) and got another switch and I am going to swap it later today to see what happens. If everything works out I will probably order the replacement from KW just so I know I have the exact correct one, but this one appears identical to the one already in there.

So that is the story of my first few days of owning my Willy's, hopefully it's all looking up from here!

[LarrBeard]

[QUOTE=I am quite competent under the hood, with electrical being my major weakness[/QUOTE]

One constant about old Jeeps and old airplanes is that they will regularly disappoint you - until you get things sort of under control.

Electrical intermittents can drive you crazy, especially if it's a rewire job. Improperly crimped terminal lugs are notorious for being intermittent. Just wiggle everything and watch to see where things quit working.

I noticed a terminal block on the firewall that didn't look stock, so maybe some wires start there and won't be too hard to replace if you decide to add some service slack.

And - you didn't break it - it just quit working; there is a difference. But it will be a good story; "When I was bringing the Jeep home ... ".

[VTWilly]

Ok, it's true, intermittent electrical issues suck.
But.. Pretty sure I got it ironed all out. So, the power was routed from the battery side of the starter solenoid (bolted to the fender near the battery) into a wireloom, into the cab, under the dash and then out the firewall and to the input of that fuse block. As far as I could tell, there isn't anywhere that it splits to power other items. There is however a butt connector about half way down so I am guessing that when they added the fuse block, they just extended the original power line back out to the fuse block. Seems like that might have been the weak point in the system.

So, I disconnected both ends of that cable, and then just ran a 10 gauge cable from the battery directly to the fuse block. I left the old wire where it was but electrical taped up both ends, just in case I need it.
Anyway after that I tried to start it and it blew the 20a fuse that leads to the battery side of the ignition switch, after putting in a new 20a fuse, everything appears to be working fine, all the gauges work and we took it for a ride around the neighborhood without issue.

Anyone have anything that they think that I am missing? Could there have been something off that cable that I needed? After seeing how it was all wired with the new gauges and all (I have a section that has 6 white wires that turns into 2 white wires that turns into 1 green wire) I already know that I want to re-wire the whole deal, but I would like to put that off until at least next year.

Thanks all, I am so glad I joined here, already been worth the price of admission.

[51 CJ3]

Soldered joints are a terrible pain when they go bad. I have had 2 cars and one airplane with bad electrical issues that went away when I replaced all of the soldered joints with proper crimps.

[bmorgil]

That's an interesting thing for you 51. Usually its the other way around. Properly soldered joints are the gold standard of low resistance connections. It looks like you are experiencing a rash of bad craftsmanship! It is probably going to become rare to find anyone who really knows how to properly solder anymore. Or for that matter a manufacturer who can do it as fast as they need to do it now a days. The modern push in styles and solder-less connections are definitely faster. My first quarter in electronics way back was spent learning how to prep the soldering iron, solder joints and apply the heat correctly. I don't think they teach that stuff anymore!

[LarrBeard]

... with proper crimps.

The key word is “proper”. Many times a crimp connection has problems because Bubba and Junior just squeezed it together without appreciating how to do it right,

A. Start with a good sharp wire stripper and strip the insulation with the right size stripping die. You know when you have the right strip die when all the insulation comes off and none of the wire strands are nicked or cut. And yes, there are English (AWG) and metric wire sizes. Like English and metric wrenches, they almost interchange – sometimes. (1.5 mm metric conductors fall right in between #16 and #14 AWG!)

B. Strip to the correct length. In general, the insulation on the wire should butt up against the metal ferrule of the contact barrel and the strands of the conductor should just peek out the other end. It should go without saying that you don’t crimp insulation in with the conductor strands. (Some contacts have separate crimp ears to support the insulated portion of the wire – these are special cases.)

C. Make sure you have the proper size connector for the wire size you are using. The conductor should fill most of the barrel of the connector; it should not rattle around loosely on the barrel. Nor, should you snip off wire strands to get the wire to go into the connector.

D. Have a good crimping tool to finish the job. A pair of vise grip pliers or gas pliers isn’t the right tool. If you are going to be making a lot of connections, spend a few dollars for a good crimp tool. Many folks do not realize that most crimp tools are color coded with a dot (red, blue, yellow…) to match the plastic sleeve on a contact. And no – you don’t need to add solder to a crimped contact just to make it better.

E. Check things when you are done. A properly crimped contact won’t pull off with finger strength pulling, nor will it twist around on the wire.

Once upon a time when I had to do real work for living, I was sent to a two day school to learn how to make MIL-SPEC crimps. As with most education, I didn’t realize how important that school was for many years.

I had an intermittent horn on the ’48 after we installed the new harness. It took me several years to get aggravated enough to chase it down and it ended up being a bad crimp in the horn wire. There was insulation crimped into the connector with the stranded conductor. I managed undo the original crimp, but I broke some contact ears and I did have to solder it back on to get a secure connection. Sometimes you just gotta’ do what you gotta’ do to get it back together.

Good luck and thanks for sharing.

[LarrBeard]

"I don't think they teach that stuff anymore!" They do, but not many people want to learn it.

Once upon a time - I ended up being an Engineering Manager at Raytheon Fort Wayne (I can say the name now) and our QC organization decided that all of the lab techs had to be Level 1 solder certified. After the usual griping and complaining ("I've been soldering since you were wearing diapers...") everyone who needed to touch a soldering iron went to solder school.

I went too - partly to share the burden and partly because I wanted to be able to do anything my people could do. Now, fast forward a couple of years. Raytheon was the prime contractor for a major job in Brazil. Our shop was located in Manaus at the head of the Amazon River. There were a couple of intramural squabbles going on and Fort Wayne needed a manager on the ground to take our side in the squabble.

I ended up setting up a repair facility out of boredom - you can only attend so many meetings. A young engineer was sent down from Marlboro to install an update in some equipment, but once he got there he confessed to the Marlboro manager on site that, quote; "I can't solder, I'm not comfortable working with molten metal”.

The quick decision was; “Well, we’ll have to cycle all of the equipment back to Massachusetts to make the modification.” I replied; “Nope, I can do it – we’ll do it here.”

“You can’t do that – you’re not certified to make those kinds of repairs” was the other manager’s reply. Then, I whooped out my Level 1 Solder Certification card and I said; “The heck I’m not.”

The guy from Marlboro got on the phone with his QC people, who checked with the Fort Wayne QC people and they decided I really was qualified to run a soldering iron after all. If I recall, it was changing a 16-tab surface mount IC and a couple of discrete parts and I did all 24 units in a day. The young engineer who was afraid of molten metal did the checkout and declared it good.

A bit later, the Marlboro manager asked me; “How did you end up with a solder certification?” In a moment of extreme meanness I replied;

“In Fort Wayne you have to be able to do real work before they make you a manager… .”

[VTWilly]

because I wanted to be able to do anything my people could do.

There is a dying management attitude/thought process if I ever heard one!

[5JeepsAz]

The best everything, above, and applauding it. I'm currently wondering if we were a different type of person, or even today, if there are folks who believe this. I refused to seek promotions unless I knew every job underneath by doing it. Bah humbug to the specialty approach where not everybody can do the basics of a job type because specialized. Yeah you can learn the basics of each and every job, and should, to elevate from management to leadership. Only later do I find out the world is not based on meritorious promotions. The number of incompetents out there is stunning. On the other hand, I have my resto to keep me humble daily. Harumph

[51 CJ3]

The best crimp on connectors crimp onto the insulation as well at the conductor making a built in strain relief in the process. I was introduced to those and a ratcheting crimper when I started maintaining aircraft and it is all I use now.

[TJones]

I found these at Summit and I'm telling you they are the best butt connectors I have ever seen!!!

https://youtu.be/7Wh5gM8GM70

[51 CJ3]

I found these at Summit and I'm telling you they are the best butt connectors I have ever seen!!!

https://youtu.be/7Wh5gM8GM70

Solder sleeves work very well. I use them for smaller than 22awg wires and connecting woven shielding to a ground.

[bmorgil]

My son brought a bunch of those home. I poo-pooed them being unsure of low temperature solder and an "old school taught" solderer! Looks like I am going to have to give those another look. I wonder what the difference is between the solder they use and standard 60/40 rosin core solder? Or maybe you can melt 60/40 with a concentrated heat gun?

[LarrBeard]

A. Yes, you can melt 60/40 rosin core solder with a heat gun - at least my heat gun will.

B. I suspect that they use a low temperature eutectic solder (it goes directly from a solid ring to a liquid without the "paste" stage in the middle of the melt cycle). It probably has some flux in there as well. I wonder how they work on old wires that aren't new and shiny at the intertwined junction?

C. When I was rewiring my brother's duck hunting boat, I found some crimp terminals with shrink sleeves with a gooey insert that melted and waterproofed the connections. They were really a good idea for wet applications, but dern if I remember what or where - but I'd bet Mrs. Google can find them if I need them again..

[bmorgil]

My first thought was that when I saw them. The "tinning" step of prepping the wire is left out there. If things anent shiny clean.... There was a lot of rosin in the solder we used to use. It did a nice wash job.

What is eutectic solder Larry? I take it it has similar properties to tin lead combinations.

We drifted into soldering on VTWilly's Introduction thread. Anything is possible here.

[51 CJ3]

I often seal regular crimps in wet areas with a dab of silicone after the wires are crimped in place. It’s not always the most attractive option but it works very well. I just replaced the taillights on my boat trailer. I replaced the cheap snap on connectors with aviation style crimps and siliconed the ends to keep the water out. I have no doubt those connections will outlast me.

https://www.aircraftspruce.com/catalog/elpages/nylonsplices.php?clickkey=18123