Last year a friend of mine with a '71 1.7 asked me to help diagnose a faulty left turn signal. I was in the midst of figuring out a grounding issue on my '69 bug, so I thought I had the chops to troubleshoot his. His bucket terminals turned out to be shot, so I sourced a new bucket with good terminals from a member here, and today I dove in and replaced it. I thought this would be a 20 minute job, but it ended up being 3 hours of real finicky work.

The big issue was getting seven wires through the boot. I quickly determined that there was no way I was getting five spade terminals through the boot's narrow opening. So I cut off all the terminals. It was a tough decision since they were all in pretty decent shape, and new ones from the auto parts store are such junk. I need to find good copper OEM-style terminals (any leads?) So after cutting off the terminals I put some bulb grease in the boot so things would slide easily. That was a big help. I got two wires for the side marker through fairly easily after cleaning off some flash from the inside of the small hole. The boot is from 914rubber.com

But the bigger issue was getting five more wires into the boot. They didn't want to just slide in what with the two other wires already in. So I used a doubled-over bailing wire to pull the wires through one by one.

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I inserted the loop through the side marker hole, then into the small side hole of the boot, passing it all the way through into the trunk area. Then I fed about 3/4" of wire into the loop and bent it over. I then pulled on the loop until the wire was pulled into the large cavity of the boot. A needle nose plier was used to pull the wire from the loop. Repeat for the other four wires. This went really well, and although a little tedious, it worked great. The boot was plenty durable AND flexible enough.

Once I got all the wires into the boot, I folded over the tabbed portion of the boot for better access to the wires. Then I stripped the insulation and installed new terminals. This was extremely fiddly and difficult because the wires had no extra length to offer, and working in the fender well isn't much fun with even normal size hands.

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The boots in my own car need to be replaced, and I'm guessing the wires and terminals are also pretty shot since they get so much abuse. How is everyone handling the short unprotected section of wire between the side marker boot and the main boot? It seems like a short section of rubber hose here would help.

So, I'm hoping not to repeat this ridiculously finicky process on my car. Hoping someone has some tricks up their sleeve for making this an easier process.

Guess you missed this thread.

http://www.914world.com/bbs2/index.php?showtopic=277787

*sigh* I think I need three beers right about now...

At least I can try the piggy-back method on my car. Getting all those terminals through will be interesting.

Bottom line it's no picnic. Mikey's rubbers are stretchable and soft. (Insert remarks here)

I staggered the wire terminals and taped them with blue masking tape. I left a long tape only tapered end. About 2". Slathered the boot with wd40 and slowly worked the bundle of wits through. Took about 3 retakes per side. A solid hour per side. Beer and drugs will help.