I assembled some injector clips the other day and only realized today that I need to check for cold solder joints.

How do I do that? Can I use a DMM and check for resistance or something?

 

There are no solder joints on the injector harness clips. The wire is crimped to a pin and the pin is stuck into the clip.

Cold solder joints are only a problem on the PCB's in our cars.

 

Ok. I made new clips though and used solder over the crimps because the fingers that gripped the wire on the crimp looked weak. I want to know if I can do something like this...

(+wire on DMM) ------------------------------------[solder/crimp][clip head] (-wire on DMM)

and check for some kind of resistance or flow that might be disrupted if the soldering job was poor.

the life of my engine rests on quality connections for these injectors and i don't want to be stupid and miss something so simple.

 

You won't generally find a cold solder joint in a resistance test. Cold solder joints look dull and grainy.

Check out http://www.aaroncake.net/electronics/solder.htm

Also, I'm too lazy to send you a PM. Change your signature as it's too long in pixel size, and about 15K over the byte size limit.

 

I hoped you crimped it, then soldered it. Soldering or tinning a wire before crimping is a absolute NO NO. If you crimped it, then solderd it, it should be ok so as long as you used pleanty of flux and heat, or at the very least rosin core flux. Like Aaron said, finding a cold joint isn't easy with a meter, it'll simply look dull and or grainy OR not adhered to the parts your soldering. Generally, cold joints work ok and are not detectable for a while before it goes to **** and not work (corrosion builds between the part soldered and the solder itself then breaks the circut). The solder should make a nice shiney filet to the parts your joining.

~Mike...........

 

Too late now, but I think they will be ok. I don't remember seeing anything that looked like a raw surface metal. Maybe a slight dullness on 1 or 2, but not uniformly ...meaning only certain spots might have.

Thanks though guys. I'll remember for next time to be super careful.