Wiring looms...an Autospsrks fan.

[cactusman]

I ordered the two front to rear looms for my car as what is there is bodge city and I had to run an extra lead for the reverse light when I bought the car as there was no wire present.

So Dec 15th I ordered from Autosparks.
Got an immediate reply saying it would take 8-9 weeks which was fine....perishing cold in January I thought.

Got them last weekend so about five/six weeks...incl Xmas too...

Today I looked carefully at them. Not only does the off side loom have the missing lead for the reverse light but so, as far as i can tell, does the near side loom too...so I have a spare wire...fab.

In spite of the cold i have fitted the offside loom.

Beautifully finished in woven sleeve. All wires colour coded as per original diagram. Length perfect. Terminations exactly right.

So a big thumbs up to Autosparks for a top job....and i have no connection to them what ever other than as a happy customer.

If you need wiring looms then I would recommend them...

[rswaffie]

Hi
I’ve got the complete set of 3.8 looms from them. Coincidentally, I opened up the engine bay loom this afternoon to start labelling up all the connections. I agree with you 100% - they appear to be superb quality and match the wiring diags perfectly. I’m hoping to get the engine bay loom laid out on the frames later this week.

[Bobb]

Does 'superb quality' mean the exact same bullet ends that are soldered in place as opposed to different style bullets just crimped on?

[cactusman]

They are crimped on with a heavy duty press tool I presume...just as the original ones were. They look almost identical. They are not the sort one can easily crimp at home and they are NOT the naff quality amateur crimped bullets you fit with a hand crimper either. Rest assured they seem excellent.

[rswaffie]

In my experience, soldered or crimped, done correctly each is just as effective. Similarly, they can both be botched. I have only inspected one of the several loom sets, but having made some up in the past I am happy with what I have seen. Whether they would pass muster with the originality squad - don’t know (don’t care).
Have you had issues with their products before Bobb?

[christopher storey]

Their products are superb in my experience . On the subject of soldered connections, the problem with solder which eventually arises is dry joints as the solder ages with vibration, heating/cooling cycles etc.

[rswaffie]

Christopher- very true regarding dry joints. Since they removed the lead I believe. Had loads of problems with that on a Panasonic TV - the circuit board was next to the psu and the heating/cooling cycle caused the solder to crack.

[Bobb]

"Have you had issues with their products before Bobb?"

Yes Richard. I bought an engine compartment harness from SNG and had several wires pull out of the bullets when unplugging them to rearrange the harness routing. I removed the effing harness and went around and soldered all connections. I also replaced some of the lugs that I thought...knew to be excrement quality. Having 41 years experience working on aircraft wiring in the RCAF makes me pretty cocky about this. If I'm ever in the same position, I'll buy brass bullets, new wiring, and make my own harness. I can live without the fancy cloth covering.

[christopher storey]

Bobb : you have said this before, and as far as I know you have no evidence that this was an Autosparks loom at all . All I can say is that those of us who have dealt with Autosparks as such ( instead of guessing who had manufactured the loom ) have as far as I know had great satisfaction from their products

[Series1 Stu]

Whilst the information above is mostly accurate I would like to make one point of order and that is that dry solder joints are made dry at the point they are made, they don't become dry joints with age, vibration or anything else that might in some way cause a solder joint to fail. I'm not saying they don't fail I'm saying that a dry joint has always been a dry joint from the moment the solder cooled down after making it.

Some interesting (yawn) data for you. This shows just how reliable electrical connections are if made correctly.

Solder joints failure frequency 0.0026 times per million hours of use. Crimped joint failure frequency is 0.00026 times per million hours. This is official data from thorough (proper) research and maintenance records over decades of gathering by government agencies and defence contractors.

Notable is that crimped joints are an order of magnitude more reliable than soldered joints. Although soldered joints aren't exactly troublesome. Obviously, the joints need to be properly made in the first place.

As for wiring looms, I believe mine came from Hutsons and are great quality with proper turned bullet connectors rather than those crappy thin walled drawn items that seem to be favoured these days. No complaints on that score.

Regards

[Turnip]

I also have had bullets pull off when separating connectors for re-routing. Definitely Autosparks looms, as they were bought directly from them. Mind you, I did buy them a few years ago and maybe things have changed since then.

Simon

[1954Etype]

I have had bullets pull off as well. Mainly where it is a heavy load wire. Still happy with the product overall though and the one in my OTS has been in place for 7 years with no issues.

[ralphr1780]

Today I looked carefully at them. Not only does the off side loom have the missing lead for the reverse light but so, as far as i can tell, does the near side loom too...so I have a spare wire...fab.

You can use it for a rear fog lamp.

[cactusman]

that is the cunning plan Ralph.

Just to comment on the bullets issue. The ones fitted are cylindrical with the crimp entirely surrounding the wire...essentially they have crimped a copper tube doen onto the wire with, presumably, some heavy duty tool as far as I can see. These are a world away from the hand crimped crap red/blue/yellow things where two tangs are bent to grip the wires. These crimps are a waste of time and pull out with ease no matter how well they appear to be crimped.

If I make my own wires I will always use soldered brass bullets as these to me are far better than the hand crimped blue/red/yellow rubbish terminals.

As someone else says, dry joints are dry from day one. Thermal cycling or vibration can destroy soldered joints although this is very unlikely in a well soldered brass bullet.