injector connector

[Greg Merritt <gregm@umich.edu>]

                          Injector Connector
                                -or-
                           Wiggle the Wires


	We have an expression around the house:  "I had to wiggle the wires
a couple of times today."  This refers to the fuel injection electrical
plugs on the squareback's distributor and each of the injectors.  We've
experience various problems with them over the years--corrosion, coming
loose, etc.  Makes the car hesitate and run *really* poorly--until you hit
a favorable bump in the road (lots of bumps here in Michigan) or hop back &
"wiggle the wires" until it's running right again.

	At a recent VW swap meet, somebody had a (mostly) complete
injection system from a late T3 for sale.  I picked up the distributor
which had the axed-off connector in place in the socket of the trigger
contacts.  I pulled out the connector:  Wow!  What a tight fit.
Unbelievable.  Our '71's trigger contact connector (along with most of the
others) was held on primarily by the rubber boot.  I figured from this
example at the swap meet that we must have had worn plastic connectors as
our major problem.

	A couple of weeks later, on a Friday, Kirsten said that she had to
"wiggle the wires" a bunch of times that day, & the car was running very
poorly.  The next morning we all piled in the car to drop her off at work
at The Farm & have a look at the pair of newborn goats (...as long as we've
been talking about dwarf goats here on the T3 list:  The Farm got a single
male dwarf goat donated to them a number of months ago... and now there are
a *bunch* of pregnant non-dwarf female goats.  They had figured that the
dwarf goat was just too small... they've made an appointment with the vet.
Anybody need a goat?).  Anyway, the car ran crappy the whole way to the
farm.  After our pancake breakfast & a visit to the goats, I "wiggled the
wires" before Em & I drove off; the car ran like a champ.

	We went to go pick mom up from work later in the day, and the
square was unhappy again.  When we got to the farm I wiggled the wires...
AND ONE OF THEM BROKE!  #4 injector, actually.  Uh-oh.  Made it home on the
remaining cylinders.  (Figured it musta been about 3.2 cylinders, as I
wouldn't be surprised if my injectors leaked...)

	Popped open the engine cover, and found the second wire on the plug
to be hanging on like a loose tooth.  Yanked the whole thing off to take it
inside & have a look at it on the kitchen table.  The electrical connectors
inside the plugs are just *very* slender conventional (spade?) connectors,
as you'd find on your fuse box.  They're held in the plug by a metal flap
that pops up when you install them--kind of like the fish hook principle.
What finally worked to get 'em out was to take some 20 gauge wire
("bailing" wire?  "baling" wire?) and bend it into a U shape, make the
radius a bit tighter by squeezing the U with some pliers, then push the
tight U into the plastic plug to push down the little flap on each female
spade connector.  They slid right out!  I went about my repair crimping &
soldering & insulating the connectors back to the wiring loom, but before I
slipped the electrical connectors back into the plugs I gently squeezed the
back end of each one so that it would fit a bit more tightly.  I checked
the fit on a spare injector--awesome!  Like new!

	It was beginning to grow dark as I finished my repair, but it was
still light enough to do the connector-crimping trick on the trigger
contact connector.  Beautiful.  Wow!  It just took a couple of minutes to
remove each connector from the plug in turn and gently squeeze the back end
tighter just a tiny bit.

	Hope this helps somebody...!

-Greg
'69 & '71 Squarebacks
'63 Beetle