I am having trouble getting the connections on the bottom of the unit. A standard spade is just not fitting.

What did you use to make the connections, and where did you get them?

 

Took a standard spade and stretched it open just a hair with two pairs of needle nose pliers. It fits on there so tight they've worked flawless for 5+ years now.

 

NAPA sells the correct size. I believe they are yellow in color.

 

I got my 2nd gen fuse block with the factory connectors so all i had to do was cut my wires and connect to the second gen wires.

 

Good to know, I couldn't find the correct size when I installed one years ago, spread a normal spade a bit and it worked fine. Later got the plugs off an FC harness to clean it up a bit...

 

Yup, a little spread on the blue ones worked real good, nice and extra tight. Beat a trip to the parts store for the right size.

Parts store / radio shack sell them things like 10 for $5... Steep, but if your in a bind I guess u have to pay. I pick up a bag of 100 for $5.00 at the swap meet. Dropped like $50-100 this year on all kinds of connectors and now have enough to last for years.

 

What I did was take a hammer to remove the brown block that holds the old wires. Then just remove the wires from the copper strip and crimmped on new connectors. I then used a short length of battery cable to attach a ground from the new 2nd block to ground on the shock tower and another short piece to connect to the hot side of the battery.