I'm sure you all have solved this one. What should I use to replace all of the rubber waterproofing covers for the engine electrical - injectors etc. I'm looking for function here ie. not expensive.

That job is not much fun. You have to pop all the metal pins out of the connector bodies, slide the new "boot" onto the wires, plug all the pins back into the connector (in the right places!!), then you can plug the connector back in and slide the boot over it. A "pin extractor" tool is recommended, though you can get by with a very thin stiff piece of metal. (A buddy of mine took a grinder to a "potentiometer tweaker" screwdriver to make it small enough to work as a pin extractor.)

Many of the boots are NLA. Some can be found at your Volvo and M-B dealers, but that is only two or three of the ~five different kinds of boot used on the injection harness. (I have part numbers at home, but not here at work.)

The good news: Jeff Bowlsby did a huge amount of research to find equivalents for all of the stock rubber boots. That was a lot of time and money he had to spend--many places will only let you order 1,000 of a part at a time, which is a whole ton of harnesses.

The bad news: Last I heard, Jeff was only providing the boots as a part of his rebuilt harnesses.

The other bad news: If your rubber boots are in bad shape, chances are that your harness is getting close to bad shape as well.

The other good news: Jeff's harnesses are a sure-fire cure for that.

http://members.rennlist.com/914_wiring_harnesses , or contact him here on the BBS with the user name "bowlsby".

--DD

Thanks for the link. Considering the stage of my "restoration," I have some other areas that the $ would be better spent I think. I was thinking of something involving small zip ties and shrink tubing, but i can't think of a good heat resistant sleeve. I do appreciate that the better fix would be a new harness, but just not yet. If you come across the part numbers for the Volvo and M-B boots, coould you post them.

Thanks

I hope we get some advice on this topic. I'm interested in these parts too.

On a related topic, several years ago I fabricated a new FI wiring harness for my street 914. It's run very reliability ever since and I think the new wiring harness is the major factor in that. I think many frustrating FI gremlins are caused by intermittant problems with the wiring system.

For my new wiring harness, I reused only the plastic connector plugs. All the wire and electrical connectors were replaced with new. With a very small and thin strip of metal, you can depress the tang that holds the electrical connectors into the plastic wiring plugs. I found new connectors of the right size from Fuel Injection Warehouse (they are in the LA area), www.fuelparts.com. The connectors used at the various sensors and the injectors are 3mm spade connections, Beck-Arnley #158-0005, and the connectors to go to the ECU are v-pins, Beck-Arnley #158-0006. Heat shrunk the whole thing together. All I'm missing are new weatherproofing boots.

Andew B.

Thanks for the kudos Dave.

Those B-A parts are good for repairs, but they come re-assembled with pigtails that require a solder connection that would be concealed within the harness. My replacement harnesses do not have any interior soldered joints to worry about.

The boots are a needed part for the D-Jet hardware system, because they span the gap between the harness and the FI component, i.e. the fuel injectors and sensors. They cover and waterproof the electrical connection which keeps out heat, dirt and liquid contamination from the electical connection including the wiring ends by the connector, where it is most susceptible to damage, and they keep the plastic connector mated to the FI injector so it does not slip out. D-jet hardware is primitive and was dramatically improved upon with the L-Jet and later hardware systems.

New replacement boots are available, and I install them on all replacement FI harnesses, which I think are quite reasonably priced for what is essentially a new harness that should last another 30 years. The new style boots are also much more durable than the original design boots, and they are German.

I also have a good supply of 'functional boots' that I make available, they usually have some minor imperfection, but are still completely functional as boots. I offer these especially for harness repairs to keep an otherwise good harness functional for a little while longer to save the expense of new boots. They may not be pretty, but they work and are not expensive. These are not the rotten torn boots we always see, I toss out anything that is not functional.

I don't however just sell parts because there are too many variables with a harness affecting its reliability and I do not believe it serves the car owners interest in the long term. The harness repairs I offer include giving the harness a full bench test and see if it is worth repairing, some are, some are not. If it has just a few issues, the cost is minor and the harness should be reliable for awhile longer. If its toast, I tell it like it is. I occasionally have good original harnesses available from time to time as well. Repair estimates only cost the cost of shipping it to me for a free evaluation.

I also have a few sets of original, perfect OEM boots and new grey harness casing available for those needing a concours quality harness.

More exciting news is that I hope to have KitCarlson EMS harnesses available in the next few months. The KC EMS promises to be a simple and nearly bolt-on programmable fuel injection and ignition control system for our cool little 914s...No more $1100 MPSs

The Beck-Arnley parts I got did not come with pigtails. Just a plain crimp connector. I crimped mine, and then melted solder into the crimp. (Belt and suspenders kind of guy.)

I've since learned that the aircraft industry prefers crimped connections to soldered. Soldered connections are apparently too brittle and develop fatigue cracks in the wire where the soldering ends.

The KitCarson EMS sure sounds promising. I've always thought removing a FI system to bolt on carbs was a silly ideal, but the crudeness of our first generation Bosch FI systems has always been troublesome to deal with.

Andrew

Andrew, I too have some B-A contacts that are just the metal crimp-on part. B-A also carries the plastic plug bodies for the 3mm contacts, in 2-, 3-, and 4-pin varieties. They don't carry the 5-pin one for the TPS, that I'm aware of.

But I think they stopped offering the crimp-on contacts a while ago. Not sure why...

I'll try to hunt up the part numbers, but the GF is starting to demand more face time again. Oh, um, I mean--I need to schedule more meetings with my attorney.

--DD

DD is quite right I did'nt find it too hard but kinda tedeous work. Every terminal has to be removed from the plastic plug blocks. I marked with perm marker dot's on ea wire and only the #1dot on the plastic blocks to put them back in the right order. I did it cheap and easy and cost effective and quick did not have to order anything. I cut off all the old caseing, inspected all wires for flexability of the insulation. I know I will get bad press on this one the main body of the harness I covered with cheap black spiral wrap. It looks good to me bends easyly and is thick enough to keep the wires from rubbing anything. For all the injectors and sensors different color heat shrink form the spiral wrap main harness to the part. Then different sizes of alagator test clip terminals that had only Red or Black stretchy BOOT. They worked great for me. Two more things I did related to the push on terminals. There are two clamps on each terminal, one holds the plastic insulation and the one for the money is the copper wire to the terminal. A simple tug on the terminal to see if it's loose or a bad wire is not good enough as the terminals insulation clamp holds the wire quite firmly. I released the insulation clamp to tug on the wire. What I found center trigger terminal fell off green copper rot. And two others were green but survived the tug test. The factory cut these in so well I couldnt even see the green untill I relesed the insulation clamp. I reused the terminals that had green copper cut the wire back 3" and soldered in new wire onto the terminal. The Last Thing I tension checked every terminal before putting it back in its block by pushing it on a spade of a used part then pinched tighter if needed. On the ECU block With spiral wrap no need to pull all it's terminals, but tension check them with a feeler gauge. Find a size that snugs into the majority of them you will find others that wont touch the gauge, pinch those closer. Mine had both 12v input loose and the ground and one on the trigger points center wire. That's the cheap and quick way out I took for an FI harness repair. See Pic injector boots and the spiral main and an freon shradder valve i silver soldered to my injector manifold. I use an old freon gauge set to check my fuel pressure.

Oh yea my yellow gas lines are only the normal black lines with large dia long lenghts of yellow heat shrink tubing shrunk on to them. One can do the crank vent hoses and vac lines this way. Sarasota Eletronics not Raido Shack has Red White Blue Yellow Clear and of corse Black. Its all a cheap way to dress up the motor bay.

Another Oh yea at the joints in the main to the injectors etc.. I used a good grade Scotts 33m eletrical tape with spray on Scotts contact cement on the taped connections to keep the end from getting hot and peeling back making for a loose end on your tape job. Ive had that tape on my truck for over ten years in the Florida sun and rain and wind and hurricanes. It has not shrunk cracked or peeled off. 84 Chev cube van - work truck 270,000 mi orignal motor never had the heads off and did the timing chain at 250,000 for good measure it was still running fine. I had 2 ign wires split open and floppy limp at the ends like hanging by a thread and it didnt even miss. Been a Good ole Chevy dont owe me anything. Back to the tape check the pic X marks the spot.

got that from a Dave darling e-mail in 1999 found by donig some creative search,,

158-0002-- 2 pin connector body
158-0003-- 3 pin connector body
158-0004 -- 4 pin connector body
158-0005 -- the 3 mm female connector
159-0006 -- the ECU connector


this should help to fix any bad d-jet harness

Those are B-A part numbers for the D-jet connector bodies.

Did you keep the info with the crimp-on metal contacts? I may have also included the part numbers of the rubber boots.... (Sorry, I didn't get a chance to check for part numbers last night.)

--DD

OK, here are the boot part numbers:



Hope this helps.

--DD