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Bad Wire Connection on Jake Brake
Hello
We are having trouble with the spade connections under the valve covers on the Jake brakes on a 8V92. The connectors have been recrimped and made tighter 3 different times and they keep loosening up. We were told that Jacobs makes a improved connector that uses screws to hold it down instead of spade lugs, has anybody heard of this or used it? If so, would you recommend it?
Thank you
Starla
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6 Replies
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Can you solder them instead of crimping them.
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Hi Charles
These are flat spade lugs with standard slip on connections. The problem is not where the wire is crimped to the female side of the spade, the problem is the spade itself having tension on the flat lug it slips over, this is where they are getting loose. I think you mean soldering the wire to the spade connector but again that is not the spot that is coming loose and we think soldering directly to the lug that is coming off of the jake brake would probably not be a good idea, it would have to get pretty hot to get a decent solder job, a lot hotter than the engine runs. We have calls into both the east coat and west coast Jacobs technical numbers but so far nobody has called us back. It is sure a good thing we are not stuck somewhere with this. Actually it is not even apart right now but this was the problem the last time the Jake quit working and we just squeezed them down and tightened everything up and put it back together and it worked fine the last time we used it. Meanwhile we talked to the previous owner of our motorhome and told them why the Jake brake was not working and he said he had already had somebody squeeze these down 2 different times in the past so now we are sure the problem is going to happen again and that is why we want to pursue what we heard was the modification from Jacobs. We have not owned this bus very long.
Starla
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If squashing the terminals down so they are tight doesn’t work have you tried cutting the old terminals off and just putting on new terminals?
Something else might be in play here because it is hard to imagine terminals that are tight slipping off.
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That is going to be a real problem. I understand the chanels the spade slides into is what is not holding.
Squeezing them down won’t last either. Been there, done that on other electrical job.
Going to have to go to some other type of connector if that is possible.
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I am going to think “out side the box” and hope that this idea is not crazy.
Can you put the connectors together like they belong then drill a very small hole thru the connectors then put a piece of safety wire thru the hole to hold the two pieces together?
I have no idea what the parts look like so I am just spit balling here.
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Hello Andre
Yes we think that is probably going to be the only way that we are going to be able to do it except it is going to need a small screw and nylock nut instead of safety wire. They are not falling off now, they are just getting very loose and having a bad electrical connection. We think the safety wire would not make a good enough connection either but the hole as far as mounting them is a good idea. We are probably going to have to pull some of them out in order to drill a hole because you can’t get to all of them to do it on the engine, plus we are not too wild about drill shavings getting left behind.
Thank you to everybody for the advice and ideas. We still have never heard back from Jacobs technical department.
Starla
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