Month: May 2019

1. I needed to clean and reattach some  crimped connectors and figured out an easy way to get them out of the plastic shell.

There is a small tab that needs to be pressed down to allow it to slide back out of the housing.  I’ve used a tiny screwdriver in the past, but that doesn’t work very well.  I spotted a ziptie on the workbench that looked about right, and it ended up working perfectly.

Push the connector towards the front of the housing (away from the wire), then slide the ziptie into the slot just below the connector from the front.  It worked better to have the smooth side of the ziptie facing the connector.  Once it is pushed in fully, pull on the wire from the back of the housing, and it should slide out.

A slow wire wheel makes it easy to clean the connector.  You may need to bend the little tab on the connector a little if it’s gotten mashed down too much.

To reinstall the connector in the housing, just push it in again until you hear the little tab click into place.

With the help of an electric impact wrench, the tough nut is gone.  It did not go easily, even with the wrench.  Once it got moving, it was no problem to remove.

(The 12-o-clock one was the tough one, the 10 was just a dress rehearsal.)

The others went more quietly with no drama.  Now the work can begin…

 

I got the car facing the other way in the garage so I can do the last brake rebuild…LR corner.

unfortunately, the lugnuts had other ideas.  Apparently I haven’t had this wheel off before, and it’s on there good.

I don’t know who put these lug nuts on or what they used but… I got 4 loosened after a ***lot*** of work, but #5 is not budging. I put a cross lug wrench on and stood on it and bounced to get some of them off.

So far I’ve broken a socket extension, a socket adapter, and a socket. Nuthin. Tried the cross lug wrench, an 18” breaker bar, an impact driver, several BFHs, and the dreaded pipe extension on the ratchet. Nuthin.

#5 is starting to round off, so I’m worried I may have to resort to cutting.  Shot it with wd40 in the meantime.