Spade end plug leads

[John Mason]

Hello all advice please,  I am thinking of having some new plug leads and making them up from braided wire with spade ends. How difficult/easy is it to crimp the spade ends to the leads and do you need any special tools.

John Mason.

[Tony Betts]

hi john,

the spade ends being thin brass, are very easy to crimp.

but i dont think anyone crimps them onto the actual HT lead.

cut the lead back far enough, so when you push the wire inner into the spade end. the wire goes past the two holes.

that way you can solder the two holes and hold the spade end tight.

hope that helps.

but it may be easier if someone puts a picture up for you.

tony

[Mike Costigan]

I've always just crimped mine; maybe not the best way of doing it, but never caused any problems.

[Chris KC]

I just nip them with a pair of pliers then solder.

[Bob Culver]

A low reisis connectionis not necessary. Solder tends to run up the wire making it rigid and prone to break, esp on manual adv cars.

[Tony Betts]

bob,

u r u n eek?

[Bob Culver]

Hi Tony
Perhaps I should have worded it more carefully.
"If soldering the solder must not be allowed to wick up the wire outside the connector."
Incidentally some thorough souls solder wires to be held by grubscrews. This is a mistake as the solder flows aunder constabnt pressure and the screw loosens.
It is good to see spade ends on old cars. modern push on insullted look wrong. I used to live in Wellington notorious for strength of the winds. Sometimes in winter on SAE50 the car could not get out of 3rd with dense rain and salt spry horizontal. Despite open plugs never missed.

[John Mason]

Thank you all ai will have a go with spade ends as it sounds simple enough and nice to know you don’t need anything special to crimp the ends. I am also quite adept with the soldering iron.

John Mason.

[A G Wood]

Hello John, hopefully there's an attached pic of how I did the leads on our Fourteen. 
The originals were rubber insulated rather than braided, (or rather the perished remains of rubber insulated) HT cable and were soldered- I am convinced they were originals because the spade [duckbill] ends were number stamped 1 to 6.
For this particular car, matt finished PVC (?) insulated cable which replicates the original look was used. I tinned 3mm or so of the wire core , pushed it through the holes, soldered it to the duckbill using a very large soldering iron and minimal 60/40 solder then slipped heat shrink over the end just because the originals appeared to have the remains of a rubber sleeve in the same position.
Back in the day when we used to do replacement HT leads in the shop it was customary to strip 10mm or so of insulation, fan it out and turn it back over the cable and then crimp the end termination on rather than relying on the sharp point in the terminal to pierce the insulation. I found without the correct crimping dies, which no one seemed to have, it was very difficult to get the cosmetically presentable crimp I was entirely happy with.

[Malcolm Parker]

The heat shrink sleeve over the joint between spade and HT lead doesn't just make the finished job neater.   When I did the HT leads on the Ulster I found that the spark was shorting from number 1 plug to the water outlet part of the Ricardo head fitted.  I put heat shrink over the end and the problem was cured.  I subsequently did the leads on the RL which also has a Ricardo head.