Imagine the fluid level sensor plug WTH? (Post #208) 10/11/2010

Google honored John Lennon’s 70th birthday on October 9th. My own birthday is on October 11th. In the real world my ideology doesn’t line up with John’s. I do like his music and not counting the thousand of so times we heard the songs when my oldest brother and sister played the songs in the early 1970s, I spent three summers in the late 1970s listening to the Beatles and John Lennon’s music. My brother was a huge fan and that’s all we played on the turntable.

So with that let me begin the post…
Imagine you are looking at your handy work from the previous day.
Imagine that you see that you forgot to connect a plug and you reach out and grab the plug.
Imagine that just as you turn the plug to reconnect it, one of the wires breaks.
Imagine that as you turn it back to you to see the end, another wire breaks.
Image how pissed you are at that point.

If one of the neighbor kids weren’t in the garage telling me about how his dad burped the BMW cooling system and cured his overheating I would have gone on a explicative laden tirade. That is not supposed to happen. Well it’s not supposed to happen, but it does on Land Rovers. Matter of fact I would be comfortable in saying anyone who has ever worked on their Land Rover has had this happen.

You could see the corrosion on the wires. It was so corroded that even a few millimeters down the wire it was still corroded.

To get this fixed I would have to take the wire connectors out of the plug housing. Normally these connectors are held in place by a tab on the plug which fits in a channel on the plug housing. Getting the tab recessed and the plug out is usually not too bad. I had to struggle with these a bit.

The plug housing had clip that had to be pried open.

I was hoping the connectors would just slide right out after I had the clip open. No such luck was to be had. I got out a small pair of very narrow needle nosed pliers. I had them inserted and with a little effort finally got the connectors out.

I now had to get the wires connected. I used a small screwdriver to get the wire end opened up to hold the wire once I got it cut and stripped. I decided to solder the connectors to get a better connection. That was good except the worst of the corroded wires would not hold solder. I tried to clean it with flux but that didn’t work. I finally decided to just crimp it in place. There was really no other choice.

I guess I could get new connectors but I’m not sure where I would find them. I know everything is available somewhere, but it’s the looking that makes it hard. Back in the day I would just drive down to Radio Shack and pick up a matching connector and crimp them in place. But I’m not as impressed with the available parts at my neighborhood Radio Shack.

So I just slipped some new heat shrink on the wires and did what I could with what I had. The good news is it is working, at least for now.

On a side note you can see my experiment of putting the O rings into brake fluid there on the fender. It turned that the O ring didn’t dissolve. And the growth after it was wet with brake fluid was acceptable. I would even say it expanded just enough to make a good seal. While digging for a wrench in my on-board tool kit I found my spare ABS pressure switch. I had forgotten I had it in the on-board tool kit. I will probably move it to the parts shelf. In any event there was a good O ring on the unit and now I know I have a spare.

Thanks for reading imagining and Happy Rovering.

Busted Tools (Post #207) 10/11/2010

I have already blogged about tools that are being sacrificed for this project. The viscous coupling has claimed three more. All were extensions for my 3/8th inch socket set.

Each was used as designed for the most part. I used long extension as a lever several times during this project. I had no idea it was made of such soft material. These were supposed to be for an impact wrench. I would have believed this made them “stronger” than a regular extension.

In any event it died. I may keep it around as beefy piece of metal in which I can used to pry or bang on. All three of the extensions I bought are now dead. The others demonstrated a softness that I did not expect. The shortest extension had the same fate as the middle extension. The ends twisted off.

To finish the project I borrowed an extension from my biker neighbor Kramer. It worked superbly. So now I am on the hunt for a new set of extensions.

Thanks for reading and Happy Rovering.