Connections

Connections, that's what's it all about. At least in an Alfa Romeo.
During my drive to the RDW the tachometre illness struck the Blue Lord again. Spontaneous accelelations from 0 to 240 kmh in 1 second!! What a car, one would say. But no, this one's due to a connection failure just besides the battery. A failure I thought I'd handled, but now it struck me like a lightning in the blue sky (what a great song, btw: Mr Blue Sky).

The @$£#%¥-multi way connector had some trouble with the moist air, so in years it corroded failureously... On the interweb now I found a company that sells these multi connectors, over in Luton, United Kingdom. The connectors I ordered are the connectors with an optional sealing. So the autumn and winter moist can't get any hold of the precious connections.
The installation of this connector is a tricky job; it can't be done outside the car, the location in the car is just a little awquart and stresses the leg muscles. Thereby the connection has to be done correct, no messing with the line colours, and a good connection of the cable ends. An adequate pair of pincers is essential too. The original Mate n Lock connectors pair of pincers costs about € 270 ! That's not the money I wanted to spent to fix a few cable connections. Maybe this would cost an entire wire web for the whole car...
At my local spare parts shop an old mechanic called 'grandpa' showed me how to fix the connectors with a Teng tools standard pair of pincers: costs € 25.
Now it's connecting time!

The package that came over the Channel

Lots of fresh and good connecting males and females

The 9-way connector with the blue seal

Make a drawing of the cables and their colours and do the job step by step


Mighty fine stuff

The right tools are important in this stage

Try the tool on the connectorparts first, do some practicing

And when you're persevering, this will be the result,

only the first side of the multi way connection

The second part from the old connector

Rusty, mwaah. Clean mwaah. Replace it? Yes

The matching of the colours is most important here.

After some practicing, I succeeded in making a fine connection with the cable

Looks fresh and sound

Even my tachometre and temperature gauge are working well again.

Let's hope the RDW will connect me soon, so the Blue Lord can be on the road again. Then filling this whole in my dash is the next on my list. Is there anyone who has a nice old radio for me?