ddub

Alright so I have this connector on my harness that wont stay in/on anymore for some reason. Every time I try and get it on and to stay when I put everything back together it just pops off again and gets more screwed up than before. Specifically, this is the connector that plugs into the plug on the water pump housing.







At first I figured I could just run 2 seperate insulated connectors to each prong on the plug via each wire in the plug. First insulated was too big, so I decided to just get as skinny of a wire blade connector as I could and then put electrical tape on the sides of it to keep them from contact, but no dice. The connectors were still too big to fit them both in there. This is the skinniest I was able to find. In the picture it probably looks normal size and not skinny at all, but trust me its about half the size of a normal one.




So what should I do? I'm gonna go to radioshak one more time to try and find something skinnier, but I feel like I'm **** outta luck here. I was thinking about trying to find someone that would cut a good connector off of their harness for me, but I doubt there's anyone out there willing to chop theirs up. Does mazda sell these plugs individually? I didn't think they would.

Any advice on this would really help because I'm running out of ideas here.

ddub

You know... I was just looking at my pictures and noticed the BAC plug over there. I no longer use the BAC but it definately looks the like the same plug. Does anyone know if I cut that connector off and use it for the one going into the water pump housing if it will fit/work properly?


*EDIT*
Nevermind, just went at checked out the BAC connector closer and looked at the other one, compared and even tried to plug it in but no dice. The BAC connect has the skinny rectangular slot on the opposite side so it wont work

Oh well, worth a shot.

SOIA

I heard tell that some parts stores actually have replacement connectors for our cars

boosted1205

iTrader: (9)

The connectors are the same . As you said, the slot is in the wrong position either centered or off center. The connectors will fit though just the slot needs to be filed down. I used an injector connector for the water thermo sensor when mine broke. They're all the same size. I changed all the connectors with new injector clips since they are old and prone to breaking.

razorback

what do the blue, yellow and orange plugs go to?

WAYNE88N/A

They go to your emissions-related solenoids- EGR, switching, and port air, IIRC. (orange is for the hot start)

If you're fairly certain that the electrical contacts are "meshing" well with the plug on there, just get a couple of dabs of RTV on the inside of the plug (make sure it won't hit the contacts when the plug is put back on), and push it onto the sender (black or red RTV should work well)...Let it cure before you try to play with it (at least 15 minutes), then do a little "pull check" to make sure it's gonna stay on there. With this concept, it shouldn't be too hard to remove when you need to take it back off in the future...

SonicRaT

iTrader: (6)

Just get a bosch injector clip, and grind the little tab off. That's what I did.

razorback

i thought so. i can take them of if i dont have emissions?


also use theidea you had bdub. just take 2 of those, cut each one half (long ways on the pin, like in the photo) and use them for makeshift plugs, just wrap each one with electrical tape, then wrap them both to bundle them.

WAYNE88N/A

It doesn't look like he's got enough of a clip retaining "structure" left on that plug, Rat...

But, ya never know...

WAYNE88N/A

Razorback- yeh, they can go, just be careful when cutting the wiring back, half of them will have 12v on 'em, so stagger your cuts, and wrap up the ends real well into the existing harness, so nothing gets shorted. You can also leave one of the "hot" wires fairly long, and sticking out of the harness wrap a couple on inches, to use for a power source in the future, should you ever need to (check the FSM wiring manual first, to verify how & when it gets power). I did this with a couple of mine...

dDub- if you're going to go with trying to get "homemade" spades in there, you're going to need to "pot" the plug, to seal the bare electrical contacts, or corrosion's gonna set in fairly quickly. I'd probably just use red RTV for this, if it was me...

ddub

Thanks a bunch for all the suggestions. Great idea razorback, didn't think about that. But before I try that idea I'm going to cut off my BAC connector and file down the slotted part then use the RTV like Wayne suggested, I think that'd work best. Thank you all for your suggestions and I'll let you know if and how it worked out.

WAYNE88N/A

Whoa, wait a minute- if you're going to cut the BAC plug, and it's still in good enough shape to get the retaining clip on it to hold it there, you won't need to do the RTV thing- as long as it fits snuggly on there like the original sensor plug fit...

The RTV idea was for you using the water thermo sensor plug you showed on the pic, since it doesn't look like a clip would stay on it...

ddub

No worries, here's what I did.

I took the metal clip from the BAC plug to use on the water thermo plug since the clip on that plug was demolished. I then proceeded to kind of crimping it inward to make it extra tight. I went to put the plug on (was kind of hard with the way I had the clip, but I eventually got it) and pushed it on as hard as I could to get it past the clip to hold it on and surprisingly it did! I then tried to pull it off and it wouldn't, so luckily I was able to make it work.

I'm going to keep all these suggestions in mind for the future, though, when this plug does eventually give out completely. Thank you all for your suggestions.

MARTIN

the reason the clip doesnt stay on, is because there is a metal sort of clip that goes around the connector and is that snaps onto the plug on the housing. just remove the metal clip, from another plug and use it.... no need to rtv or anything, that plug looks like in good condition, just get the metal clip...

ddub

Did you even read my last post? Obviously not, I already did that. Oh and fyi, I was using the metal clip already and it was still coming off, this was later found out because it was pretty well mutilated, so I stole the BAC one, as indicated in my last post, and had to "crimp" it in a fashion to make it even tighter so it'd hold better.