Getting the ‘57 beetle back on the road in 2024

[bosco659]

Many electrical connections on the car have a recess into which the wire is inserted and a screw squeezes the wire in the connector. Some of the original connections had a small brass ferrule onto which the screw was tightened, while others appeared to be tinned with solder and I also found connections with bare wire. My replacement headlight dimmer switch uses this type of connection. It looks like that circuit uses a stout 10 gage wire and I’m trying to decide whether I should tin the wire or just clamp down on the bare strands. My concern with tinning of this diameter of wire is it becomes a bugger to seat the screw into the wire enough to deform it to get a good connection. The bare strands seem to splay out well to get a decent contact patch inside the connection. Pictured is a couple of samples of 12 gauge wire I tried in the connection.

What do you think?

 

[Grimly]

Wonder how many young un’s wouldn’t know what this is?

View attachment 365508

I ain't a young'un, but even at that it's been a long time since I used one.

 

[Grimly]

Many electrical connections on the car have a recess into which the wire is inserted and a screw squeezes the wire in the connector. Some of the original connections had a small brass ferrule onto which the screw was tightened, while others appeared to be tinned with solder and I also found connections with bare wire. My replacement headlight dimmer switch uses this type of connection. It looks like that circuit uses a stout 10 gage wire and I’m trying to decide whether I should tin the wire or just clamp down on the bare strands. My concern with tinning of this diameter of wire is it becomes a bugger to seat the screw into the wire enough to deform it to get a good connection. The bare strands seem to splay out well to get a decent contact patch inside the connection. Pictured is a couple of samples of 12 gauge wire I tried in the connection.

What do you think?

View attachment 365522View attachment 365523

Put a ferrule on it. Soldered ends squash out under load and time, and lose connectivity.

 

[Downeaster]

Put a ferrule on it. Soldered ends squash out under load and time, and lose connectivity.

I was gonna post something like that but ....SQUIRREL!

 

[bosco659]

Put a ferrule on it. Soldered ends squash out under load and time, and lose connectivity.

Will do but where can you buy these ferrules? My Google search hasn’t come up with anything yet.

Just looked again, something like these?

 

[gggGary]

tin the wire or just clamp down on the bare strands

Ole reliable here with my acetone lol
Perhaps both?
Lightly tighten the screw on the bare wire, remove. solder, No-alox or similar joint conductant antioxident a good final step before install.
Anti sieze would probably be fine for this, primary job is keeping moisture away.

 

[bosco659]

Ole reliable here with my acetone lol
Perhaps both?
Lightly tighten the screw on the bare wire, remove. solder, No-alox or similar joint conductant antioxident a good final step before install.
Anti sieze would probably be fine for this, primary job is keeping moisture away.

I like that idea @gggGary. It will preform the wire to the profile of the connector. I’ve been using dielectric grease on most of my connections.

 

[Grimly]

Will do but where can you buy these ferrules? My Google search hasn’t come up with anything yet.

Just looked again, something like these?

View attachment 365542

That'll do fine, just need the proper crimping tool for them.
They're a lot cheaper than they used to be - tools and ferrules.
However, some of the cheap crimp connectors are pure trash.

 

[bosco659]

New dimmer switch with adaptor pigtails.

 

[TX650A Van Islander]

Wow Vic, nice thorough work! I can still remember the sound and feel in my left foot from those dimmer switches

 

[bosco659]

Installed the battery. Tested as much as I could. Everything seemed to work. The wiper is sooooo slow though. The left turn signal work intermittently. I think it may be the contacts in the stalk. I’ll try to take it apart to clean it.

 

[bosco659]

I removed the turn signal assembly and once I looked at all the springs and little bits I thought it best to leave it intact and clean what I can. I’ll spray it with contact cleaner tomorrow but tonight I cleaned the contacts that I could get to.

To do this I had to make a small tapered sanding tool. I took a popsicle stick, split it in two then sanded one end to a taper to allow it to get into tight spaces. Then I took a strip of 320 emery cloth and attached it to the stick. To do this I applied some “krazy glue” like adhesive to the wood. Then I sprayed some accelerator on the emery cloth. Then mated them together first and instant bond. Then trimmed the emery cloth off with scissors and a sharp knife.

The tool worked well and I got rid of some of the oxidation and gunk on the contacts. Hopefully it will work more consistently now.

I’ve attached a pic of the ferrule thingys that VW used back it the day.

 

[bosco659]

Well I shook the moths out of my wallet and ordered this crimping tool, complete with a ferrule kit. There were lots of kits available on Amazon for half the price but I thought it best to get a recognized brand. I’ve found Klein makes nice stuff. I hope to get this next week and will post some pics of it in use. I think I’m going to go back and redo some of the repair connections I made last month.

 

[jetmechmarty]

Well I shook the moths out of my wallet and ordered this crimping tool, complete with a ferrule kit. There were lots of kits available on Amazon for half the price but I thought it best to get a recognized brand. I’ve found Klein makes nice stuff. I hope to get this next week and will post some pics of it in use. I think I’m going to go back and redo some of the repair connections I made last month.

View attachment 365790

That looks good to me! Getting the wiring right is critical.

 

[bosco659]

That looks good to me! Getting the wiring right is critical.

Yes when I tested the car with the battery in, the wiper motor ran painfully slow. I’ll need to check that wiring circuit. Perhaps I’ll bypass the switch to see if that speeds it up. The switches being idle for 50+ years may now have poor contacts.

 

[bosco659]

Just a comment about quality of yesteryears. This is the turn signal assembly from the beetle. Even on the cheapest model available at the time, the signal assembly has a nice die cast aluminum housing. In all fairness, I suppose plastics technologies weren’t that far advanced back then.

 

[gggGary]

From a guy old enough to have driven a couple six volt cars in the day see how things work when the generator is doing it's job, before getting too upset about slow electrics. Or clamp an old fashioned 6 amp charger on the battery while testing.

 

[Jim]

Had a few 6V cars. Even with the generator going the wipers are slow. Without it... painfully slow.

 

[madmax-im]

I had a '66 Bug with the 6v system..you had to rev the engine to make anything work...the horn sounded sick LOL

 

[bosco659]

I do have a robust 6V charger and can try this. I know that the battery, fully charged at rest only puts out around 6.4V and while on the battery tender, 6,7V. My bigger charger puts out quite a bit of amperage. I’ll see tomorrow. As usual I’m overthinking things. But if I didn’t, what else would I have to do?

Maybe I should convert it to 12V

Thanks for the comments and suggestions.