Rednecks shouldn't be allowed to buy electrical tape

I was sorting out the taillights on my new-to-me '99 Chevy van today. I noticed when I test drove the van that they weren't illuminating correctly, and that the right turn signal would double-blink when stepping on the brakes.

After I got it home and dug in, it was apparent the trailer harness had been spliced in by fools, so I removed their handy work and ordered a PnP harness kit. A bit of googling also suggested the bulb sockets corrode on the back side(where you can't access without cutting into the plastic housing), but I found new complete harnesses on Rockauto for $13-each!

After installing them today, the lights were much brighter, but the right-turn/brake combo was still causing it to double-blink. Viewing from the outside, I noticed the right-rear turn signal actually went off when the brakes were on???

A bit more poking around inside revealed that someone thought it would be a good idea to strip an twist the ground wires for the right turn bulb and license plate bulb together...but they didn't bother to connect them to ground! This caused a feedback loop through the filament of the brake lamp. Argh!

I sure hope whoever owned this van originally wasn't an electrician!!!

....But what am I supposed to use to hold my blood in after I gash my fingers for the umpteenth time?

I see almost as many Chevy vans with rear light problems as I see German cars. The electrical tape might be factory.

Neither should n...nevermind.

But if I don't tape their wrists they get loose.

If that's all the troubles you have on your chevy, ill trade you a Ford that had the voltage regulator only partially bypassed by the last owner.... Strange things kept happening in the juice dept. After regaining my sanity i ripped it all out and now have a one wire alternator.

I'm trying to cure the Old Man from butt connectors. Solder, man, solder.

I am on a crusade to rid the planet of the Scotchlok.

The engineer who devised these electrical destruction devices should have them clipped to every square millimeter of his or her hide. Solder and shrinkwrap are the way to go, but if the situation calls for a butt splice then use an uninsulated type and shrinkwrap over it.

But how else are you going to temporarily install trailer wiring onto that truck you rented.

Leased. I mean the truck you leased. Nobody would ever temporarily modify a rental truck or car.

I know this turns into a religious argument, but I've had zero problems with the good kind of butt connector, the kind that is made from tubing instead of rolled sheet and also has a length of heat shrink over it, when crimped with a good tool (indents the connection instead of just squeezes shut) and my car is one big giant grafting of wiring harnesses. On the flip side, I can't solder wires worth a damn, and my experience in the field is that a lot of other people also can't. Those butt connectors are really expensive but 5 years and maybe 65k miles of running Megasquirt in a rallycross car says that they don't fail or suffer from green death.

In reply to Curmudgeon:

That's exactly how they installed the trailer harness. Oh, yeah...they also added a wire running from the right turn signal, over to the left side(where they'd tapped in the rest of the trailer harness), and it was connected with butt-connectors.

When I first looked at the van, I noticed there was no trailer plug on the bumper and asked the seller. He opened the back door, reached inside the left-rear cavity from the inside, pulling out the socket. Then explained this was "factory" because the newer Chevy he'd bought to replace this one was also wired this way.

Of course, I saw the vampire taps and generally E36 M3ty wiring and knew better, but I also felt a bit sorry for him because he seemed like a genuinely nice guy who honestly wasn't mechanically-inclined enough to know any better.

Knurled wrote: ....But what am I supposed to use to hold my blood in after I gash my fingers for the umpteenth time?

Duct tape. Duh.

You know who should be allowed to buy electrical tape? PilotBraden. At gunpoint, if necessary. Then he should make a freakin' bee line down to his "friend"'s place of business and get us those photos that he promised.

That's who.

There are some tools which should require a licence before they can be bought.

Duct Tape, Vice Grips, Crescent wrenches and pipe wrenches all require a licence.

I'm tired of dealing with the results of these things being wielded by folks who don't know better.

Rednecks carry wire nuts in their pockets. And many have worked down at the plant, and learned the Westinghouse splice. I'm pretty happy coming along behind many of their repairs.

It's Michael, the helpful urban boyfriend that makes me shudder. There's nothing he's not willing to try to do, and nothing apparently he actually can do. He's the one that does creative wiring and other helpful fixes and improvements. He believes that cute dogbone wrench really is a tool.

Curmudgeon wrote: I am on a crusade to rid the planet of the Scotchlok. The engineer who devised these electrical destruction devices should have them clipped to every square millimeter of his or her hide. Solder and shrinkwrap are the way to go, but if the situation calls for a butt splice then use an uninsulated type and shrinkwrap over it.

DING DING DING
HOT DOG WE HAVE A WIENER!

F-ing appliance screws..

I find at least one damn robertson sheet metal screw from someones dryer in every project I work on!

I found the one in my CX500 yesterday. Someone gronched one into the carb boot clamp because they had lost the correct screw, now neither one works right.

What mechanic has a robertson in his toolbox??? And I'm Canadian fer cryin out loud!!

In reply to Woody:

I have a roll in the trunk of my car. I am also trying to get permission to post some more photos.

Trans_Maro wrote: What mechanic has a robertson in his toolbox???

The good ones.

It's the only screw head worth using.

FWIW, my company's old 01 1500 express did the exact same thing with the turn signal when on the brakes when I started. I was bored one day and happened to have my soldering kit, rolls of tape, and reels of wire with me.....I rewired the back of that van in about an hour or so. No more problems. It didn't even have a trailer harness, but I think it was fubar'd on the gm assembly line first, or there was a fusable link built in there that toasted itself

Aside from the company's '03 2500 express consuming light bulbs everywhere at an alarming rate, it hasn't had these issues.....It must have been built in Mexico.

Is there a clean way to splice wires in without using scotchlocks? I've never had an issue with scotchlocks so maybe I should count my blessings. One trick is to take a razor blade and clean up/cut plastic where the jumper wire goes it as they are a pain to install correctly if you don't.

I agree that electrical tape is like wiring graffiti, if people used just one small piece it would be alright but it is always like a tumor of the stuff. The local motorcycle mechanic was repairing a harness and pulling tons of tape out and said something like "it would be okay to use if they fixed the wiring problem, but they didn't."

Without electrical tape, a rednecks life would literally fall apart. No.... Wait, thats duct tape.

N Sperlo wrote: Without electrical tape, a rednecks life would literally fall apart. No.... Wait, thats duct tape.

Don't forget the bailing twine!

A roll of electrical tape works well in a first aid kit btw

benzbaronDaryn wrote: Is there a clean way to splice wires in without using scotchlocks?

Some kinds of wire stripper can strip a wire in the middle. If you're good at soldering, you can do that.

The Knurled way is to cut the wire, strip both ends, and use one of the aforementioned Butt Connectors of Awesome with the spliced-in wire added to one side. I've done double splices this way, too.

When splicing this way, I like to use one of the goo-filled heat shrink tubes over the butt connector's shrink. The goo fills the gap between the two wires.

Zomby Woof wrote:

Trans_Maro wrote: What mechanic has a robertson in his toolbox???

The good ones. It's the only screw head worth using.

Sorry, good mechanics keep the woodworking tools separate.

Find me a robertson fastener in a car that is not a Canadian Model A Ford.

They're not supposed to be there.

Robertson is only a superior drive system if you're building a deck.