[T3] FI harness repair

[Daniel Nohejl]

> I don't see anything to be concerned about in your photo. The 
> insulation is cracked right at the end of the connector, or perhaps 
> that's just the end of the insulation, but that's no big deal. You 
> say that it looks worse than this, are there broken strands of metal 
> conductor?  
> 
> If you have a couple broken strands, the only thing to worry about is 
> that they not short to the other side of the connector. If you have 
> more than half the strands broken, you may need to consider some sort 
> of replacement.

There are broken strands of conductor but not many and none appear to be in danger of touching a strand from the opposite side. Perhaps I should just keep an eye on the wires? I experienced a weird intermittent miss last week both “off the line” and while accelerating hard in 2nd gear. I thought that perhaps finding these wires was a lucky bit of accidental diagnosis. However, after doing a tuneup and replacing the spark plugs, the miss has vanished for now. 

> IIRC, this is one of those replacement harnesses. IMO, he used too 
> heavy a wire. Perhaps this was simply following the "if some is good, 
> more is better" philosophy. The down side may be that the wire is 
> stiffer, hence less flexible. This is an application where 
> flexibility is important.

Even in hot weather the wires are relatively stiff and not always compliant. My sense was definitely that the harness builder wanted to make something as close to bulletproof as possible….something that would outlast the stock harness. 

> If you really need to fix something here, get some of the correct 
> crimp connectors from Keith, find a suitable crimp tool ($$$) and 
> save as much of the old wire as possible. It should be possible to 
> lose as little as 1/8" to do this.

If it comes to it, I have a ratcheting crimper that works with the mini connectors. I bought 6 off them from you a bunch of months back and test fit one in my crimper and it fit well.