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Triumph TR3 - Electrical Connections

I have a number of electrical connections to renew, but I haven't yet gotten the hang of soldering on those bullet connectors. I'd appreciate any tips for how to make the best connections.

Let the electrons flow...

Bill Stagg
1961 TR3A
Bill Stagg

Bill - Strip back the vinyl insulation till you get clean copper strands. Twist the strands and pre-tin them with rosin flux cored wire solder. Make sure it reads 63/37 solder. The 63% is tin, the 37% is lead. You need clean copper for the solder to wet and enough heat for sufficient time to wet the solder to the copped strands. When finished, the 1/2" end or so should look like one nice shiny silvery strand. The solder will have wetted in and around all the strands by capilary action. Remember if the copper strands are not "coppery" looking before starting, they are coated with oxide. You can't solder properly to oxidized copper. You can make it freeze to it but it won't be soldered. The shiny apearance will indicate that the solder has alloyed into the copper strands forming a fusion intermetallic compound between the tin in the solder and the copper. This will be Cu3Sn or Cu6Sn5 or both.

Now insert the "tinned" end of the wire into the "bullet" all the way till you see the tip sticking through the open end.

Clamp the wire somehow to support it if needed. Don't clamp the "bullet" or you will sink the heat away faster than you can apply it. Melt a bit of solder onto the tip of the iron to "tin" the tip. This will ensure rapid heat transfer through the liquid solder on the tip and into the "bullet". Once it gets hot, manually feed the wire solder into the hole in the top end where the wire is inserted. If it has been pre-heated enough, the solder will melt and flow all the way through till you see it come out the small hole in the outer end. This will happen providing that the inside of the bullet is clean and free of oxide. If they are old ones being re-used, run a drill into the top end to get down to clean metal in the bore before inserting the stranded wire.

File off any excess that flows out the small hole and "voila" as we say up here in French Canada.

Don Elliott, 1958 TR3A

web-site:- www.elliotttechnologies.com



Don Elliott

Don,

Merci beaucoups for the graduate level course in bullet soldering. Pretinning the wire should do the trick. I'll let you know how it goes as I put theory into practice.

By the way, you can stop sending the snow down south. We've got all we need, thank you very much.

Enjoy,

Bill
Bill Stagg

Do you remember about 4 or 5 winters ago, all the US TV weather forecasters suddenly stopped blaming Canada for the cold and all the snow. For one year, it all came from Siberia over the north pole and down into the US. They never even mentioned us. I guess they got complaints from the Siberians, so they went back to blaming Canada. We feel much better now that we are properly recognised again.

BTW, we have only had about a foot of snow since Christmas, but it's been cold - very cold. If fact we had more snow after the Nov. 5th snowfall which all melted by mid-December.

I haven't even been cross country skiing yet this winter.

Don Elliott
Don Elliott

This thread was discussed between 16/02/2003 and 17/02/2003

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