I got a harness that is completely hacked up (they just cut off all the rats nest connectors and taped them shut, no wire tracing of anything) and need to do some repairing. It has aftermarket injector clips on (which were broken and not even heat shrinked) and I am putting on stock ones.

Now my question... the copper wire does NOT want to be soldered. I can heat it up as much as I want but the solder will not mix into the wire. Is there special solder designed for use with copper?

I gave up for today..

 

Just make sure the wire is nice and clean, use electrical solder with a flux core. also try taking some sandpaper to the wire + to the gun/iron.

Solder gets sucked to heat. I would try taking a small board to set ontop of your intake etc to work on soldering.

Banzai racing has a patch harness, I am not sure if it would benefit your situation any.

 

are you tinning the wires?

I agree with a light sandpaper before hand to rid any surface which is stopping the solder.

 

I'd recommend using crimp connectors. A proper crimp connection is more secure and less hassle, especially if you've every had to track down a soldered connection that broke after you shrink wrapped it.

 

I gotta agree with Mahjik. After some research on google, I've come to realize that crimping and Soldering are just as good as each other.

However, solder joints supposedly provide more resistance against electricity and if you are exposed to the ocean your solder joints go bad (I read up on this from some boating forum, lol, so lets hope your FD doesn't get flooded on)

 

I was just using some regular solder I had sitting around. I am kind of new to it, so what is "tinning"... and I was trying to find some solder with a flux core but none of the stores where I live seemed to carry it.

I'm thinking of just using the crimping connectors that also have heat shrink on them...

The solder connections I've done don't look to good and I don't want to rely on it with my new engine. Also, when you solder the connections get very hard and seem to get a bit brittle..

 

also called rosin core. they sell it seperate too, just crimp the wires, itll be easier

 

radio shack homie even autozone or pep boys

 

I figured it out. Bought some flux and it worked like a charm.