My LH turn signal sometimes works, somtimes not. I narrowed it down to the connector from the lamp assy to the body harness. What's the best way to cleanup or repair the connector? The spades are a little crusty, and maybe don't squeeze each other hard enough. Can you clean the tabs, and bend them a little? Or does someone sell just these connecotrs that I could splice in?

If they can be cleaned up, how do you do it? Is dielectrric grease in them good or bad?

No tips on cleaning/rebuilding or replacing crusty connectors?

Once upon a time I had a job to clean some brass electrical connectors that were machined from solid and supposedly ultrasonically cleaned. The manufacturer skipped the ultrasonic part and shipped cruddy stuff. Went online and found that the cheap toilet cleaner from Ace hardware works well. That became a routine step for cleaning connectors. So, I would mix some of that with water and dip your connectors in it. This stuff , I am told , also works wonders on cleaning brass firearms cartridges.
As for reshaping them to grip better, you can take a paper clip and slide it into the receptacle body and release the receptacle from the housing so you can give it a squeeze. There is no need to remove the spade from the body I suspect.

Wow, interesting technique. I've got nothing to lose.... worst case I cut off the connectors and splice in wire.

So, you dip the whole connector into the solution? Plastic housing and all?

The plastic will probably be fine. We used plastic bowls to hold the mix with no problem.

As for reshaping them to grip better, you can take a paper clip and slide it into the receptacle body and release the receptacle from the housing so you can give it a squeeze. There is no need to remove the spade from the body I suspect.

To remove the female connector, push in the small tap and pull so it can be removed from plastic housing. once it is out, you will probably need to bend it back up so it will lock back into the plastic housing.


http://www.chevelles.com/showroom/data/500/flat-b6.jpg

After it is out, bend the flat plate up so it is tight against the lips, and you may also want to squeeze the lips a little tighter. Be gentle as it is very easy to squeeze to much.

http://www.chevelles.com/showroom/data/500/DSC01100_2_.JPG

Sweet! I'm gonna pick up some of the TB cleaner, and try taking the terminals out. Thanks!

I built a whole new harness from scratch in a '63 Nova, and reused a lot of those special connectors. I soaked them in Brasso for a couple of days, and that cleaned up most of the crud.