10-23-2023, 11:40 AM
Last winter I had an issue where I lost power to my HWH leveling. I eventually figured out what at the time I thought was a bad relay as once I traced it down and replaced the relay all was working "well" again. During this fix I realized that when said relay is bad I not only don't have power to HWH I don't have a horn or a backup camera and a few other things. It was actually super handy as when the camera was out you knew you had a problem. So on our last trip I noticed that over a few REALLY bad potholes I would temporarily lose connection and then it would come back. It also seemed like my backup cam picture was not as crisp and had a few lines from time to time. So the other day after finally getting my well pump switch problem solved I decided to take a deeper dive and what I found was a bit disturbing.
I quickly found out that touching said relay or worse yet touching the circled orange wire would cause me to lose connection AND the orange wire got so hot you could not hold it. Pulled the relay and from the picture you can see how discolored the male spade was from heat. Then learned from chatting with Richard and Bill that resistance equals heat and I most likely had a bad connection inside of that pesky little block...well pesky at that time. First challenge was I had no clue how to get the female side of the connection out of the block. After needing Bill to google how to remove the females from the block for me I found out that block is called some variation of a 5 pin relay socket and more specifically mine is made by Hella. Actually part of the way through removal wire came all the way out of the connector so it must have been hanging on by a thread. Plastic around wire had turned black from heat as well.
Pulled the blocks apart to get easier access to the one that needed attention and thanks to the YouTube video they quickly came out but now the question was where on earth do you find a female non-insulated terminal with the tab to retain it inside the block? I can tell you it's not Home Depot, O'Reilly or Autozone. In the end it was Amazon for the win as they had what I thought I needed. Was so much easier to find once I knew I was looking for that Hella relay socket as well since the old one had melted quite a bit and I figured who knew what melted inside as well.
Was also SUPER thankful that a splurged a few weeks ago for a proper set of crimpers with multiple dies from Wirefy thanks to a member here. A newbie like me had no actual clue that you needed a different crimper for different connectors. The non-insulated were a bit of a chore even with the nice crimpers due to limited space down there and the super short wires.
Learned a lot and once back together it's functioning as intended with no wires so hot you can't hold them. Put a smattering of pictures and links below for what I needed in case someone else has this problem in the future so you can fix it in about 10 minutes. I can't divulge the amount of time I invested.
https://youtu.be/pELf2s0xPAs?si=CmcnRKSxWcXg9tYX
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B092MRZ5JK?ref...tails&th=1
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B000VUEDYI?psc...ct_details
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B01MPZ2T2C?psc...ct_details
I quickly found out that touching said relay or worse yet touching the circled orange wire would cause me to lose connection AND the orange wire got so hot you could not hold it. Pulled the relay and from the picture you can see how discolored the male spade was from heat. Then learned from chatting with Richard and Bill that resistance equals heat and I most likely had a bad connection inside of that pesky little block...well pesky at that time. First challenge was I had no clue how to get the female side of the connection out of the block. After needing Bill to google how to remove the females from the block for me I found out that block is called some variation of a 5 pin relay socket and more specifically mine is made by Hella. Actually part of the way through removal wire came all the way out of the connector so it must have been hanging on by a thread. Plastic around wire had turned black from heat as well.
Pulled the blocks apart to get easier access to the one that needed attention and thanks to the YouTube video they quickly came out but now the question was where on earth do you find a female non-insulated terminal with the tab to retain it inside the block? I can tell you it's not Home Depot, O'Reilly or Autozone. In the end it was Amazon for the win as they had what I thought I needed. Was so much easier to find once I knew I was looking for that Hella relay socket as well since the old one had melted quite a bit and I figured who knew what melted inside as well.
Was also SUPER thankful that a splurged a few weeks ago for a proper set of crimpers with multiple dies from Wirefy thanks to a member here. A newbie like me had no actual clue that you needed a different crimper for different connectors. The non-insulated were a bit of a chore even with the nice crimpers due to limited space down there and the super short wires.
Learned a lot and once back together it's functioning as intended with no wires so hot you can't hold them. Put a smattering of pictures and links below for what I needed in case someone else has this problem in the future so you can fix it in about 10 minutes. I can't divulge the amount of time I invested.
https://youtu.be/pELf2s0xPAs?si=CmcnRKSxWcXg9tYX
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B092MRZ5JK?ref...tails&th=1
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B000VUEDYI?psc...ct_details
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B01MPZ2T2C?psc...ct_details
Brad Aden
2003 Newell #653 Quad Slide Cat C-12 engine
St. Louis, MO