VCCA Home Forums TECHNICAL - GENERAL Electrical - 6 volt Connecting new wire pigtails on horn

Can anybody give me advice on this? The original ones are crimped and fused on. Should I cut wire near original connection and solder or is there a better way? Crimp will break if I try to pry it open. I do not think that it can be pried open without heating it a lot. The wire covering is original braided with rubber insulator and it is disintegrating. Also, original braided insulation is very heavy and new insulation is thinner. I do not know if this matters. The gauge of the wire looks the same. Thanks.

What year is the vehicle in question?

1952 Chevy Bel Air.

Update: Decided to cut old wire off and left about 1 inch of wire were it was spot welded to the internal terminal. I stripped the old insulation off of the wire that was left. In order to strip the insulation off, the metal clamp on the insulation has to be bent up slightly. Do not bend it to far or it may break off. I would only recommend moving about 1/8 of an inch just to get enough clearance. Use a utility knife to slit the insulation so that it can be pulled off. I then bent the wire 180 degrees from the original direction. I then stripped the end off of the new wire and put it through the metal clamp. Then I just twisted the two wire ends together and soldered them and put shrink tubing on it. Make sure that the wire does not stick up to far or it will rub against the horn cover when you put it back on and that would eventully lead to a nasty short when you blew the horn. You can bend the terminal down slightly. Just make sure that you do not bend it so far that it hits the mechanical part of the horn. I ordered pigtails off of the internet from one of the big suppliers who gets them from a company on the west coast that makes antique harnesses. They were the right gauge (12 ga) but the overall diameter of the wire was half the thickness of the original wire. I ended up buying 10 gage cloth covered wire off of e-bay. This was still slightly thinner than the original but almost twice as thick as the wire I originally purchased. I am guessing that 8 gage wire would have been exactly the same outer diameter as the original. I was able to use the original end that goes on the terminal block since it was only pressed on w/o solder. I used an ice pick to open it up. BE CAREFUL! My first attemp was not pretty. I have finished the passenger side horn as practice. I plan to take pictures of the entire process for the driver side horn.