Check those crimps . . .

[MS19087]

Last week I installed 2 cables from my Van's wiring kit . . . I secured one end of the #2 battery cable to the Batt relay and was moving the cable to route it when the wire came loose from the lug - 10 minutes later I discovered another cable with the same defect. This was enough to prompt me to buy a real crimper and re-crimp every lug I received in the kit - kind of scary considering that these loose lugs can cause fires! I bought the Terminal Tool - real secure crimps now . . .

[jsharkey]

There was a bad batch made in 2006 and Van's offered to replace them. I found out about it in the RVator, 5th edition, 2006 and had the cables that failed the recommended 40 lb pull test replaced. There may be a relevant service bulletin (SB) on the Van's webpage. Hopefully there haven't been more bad batches since.

It's good practice to pull test all connections, home made or otherwise. After all Van's isn't an FAA certified fabricator and we are all responsible for our own build. (We should probably also test the rudder cables.)

Ironically after I actually started wiring I found out that I didn't need most of the cables supplied. The wiring kit covers many models and configurations and therefore has a lot of redundancy in terms of the big power cables.

Jim Sharkey
RV6 - Wiring and final bits

[Bob Brown]

Get a copy of the Aeroelectric Connection and read the part about making connections on the big cables...guaranteed you drive some pieces of romex into those connectors and solder them they will pass the pull test...