R65 Ignition Sensor electrical connector broke!!

[tc80211]

Hey Guys,

'83 R65 here....
I am in process of doing a restoration and took off my front cover just to find the plastic electrical connector for the Ignition Sensor has broken. Pretty much was so brittle it fractured into a million pieces (or ten pieces)... The wire itself is actually fine and the metal portion of the connector remain inside the female receiving side which i believe goes to the ignition control unit... the issue now is can I leave the connection even though the connector itself is toast? A new ignition Sensor is like $500 and not in the budget ($2K budget on this resto not including paint cost)... any insight would be amazing!@

[Tony Smith]

The plug/socket you are looking for is 3 way "Junior Power Timer" or "JPT". And no I am not on drugs.

Not as easy to find as they once were, I found 2 sets on eBay in Switzerland for around $US10.00 including post. The plug/socket is dead easy to change over and use just remember to remove the wire bale first.


For the benefit of Steve Hawkins this was posted using Nexus 7 :-)

[tc80211]

THANK YOU!

[montmil]

Electronics stores might be able to provide a 3-pin replacement connector plug and the appropriate size male/female connectors. The three small wires are close to 22 gauge. just mention that to a sales person and see what they have to offer.

The swap will require a little bit of work but it's a doable project. Just don't tell your R65 that it's not BMW OEM.

[MrRiden]

Shrink tubing perhaps?

[Tony Smith]

There are myriads of ways to effect the repair in a perfectly sound way. But for little outlay the original part can be used which kind of makes it easier if some other poor bugger has to work on it.
 
Mind you, before I found a source of JPT plugs and sockets I was going to simply solder the wires together and shrink tube them, after all the only reason you would ever disconnect a HEI bean can is to replace a dead hall effect device or timing chain etc - IOW an infrequent event.

[tc80211]

I was initially thinking the solder and heat shrink route as well... However, since I'm doing a restoration, figured I should at least try to make to look right.

Next up polishing all the fins on the cylinders.... any recommendations?? fair amount of oxidation on there, so was thinking:
1. sand lightly or hit with light wire wheel
2. using thin buffing wheel on drill, go to town

after 2 hours I did 3 fins...

[georgesgiralt]

Hello !
I've redone a couple of bean cans using original connectors bought here :
http://www.kabelschuhe-shop.de/Connecteurs/Connecteurs-AMP-JPT:::314_364.html?XTCsid=2inu35uljqf4ohkj1lj490hjj5
They are quite cheap .... and provide good service. So you may try them.
P.S. I've no connection to them, only a customer happy to have found the male 3 pins connector everybody told me it was NLA...

[Tony Smith]

Next up polishing all the fins on the cylinders.... any recommendations??

Hydrofluoric (not hydrochloric) acid, industrial strength purchased from a chemical supply place.
 
Hydrofluoric acid is the "active" ingredient in most mag wheel cleaners or alloy cleaners. As it is seriously nasty stuff, commercial product using it (such as mag wheel cleaner) is usually way too weak to remove road grime and oxidation on engine cases and fins.
 
If you do buy a high concentration of this stuff, please read the Materials Handling Instructions,and believe them. If you get this on your skin it will do much the same job as the Alien's saliva in the various "Aliens" movies (it is also the stuff used by hitmen to dispose of inconvenient bodies). Go slow, go careful and use a section of your yard where all you will kill is grass, do not use over concrete, because guess what, it eats that too.
 
If you are lucky enough to live in a country with slightly less strict dangerous goods laws than Australia,  you can try for a product by a German firm by the name of Henkel - they have two "paired" products - "Alu-prep" which takes alloy surfaces back to a clean bright finish and "Alu-dine" which is available in various "colours" and is used to provide a long lasting semi impervious finish. (If you have ATE calipers, either on an R65 or the earlier swinging caliper type on bigger BMWs, those calipers were finished OEM with this product, so you can see how damm good it is). Sadly in Australia the dangerous goods laws are such that I can only buy the Henkel products in 20 litre drums, combined with freight from Melbourne (about 3,000km South of me) it is a $600 spend.
 
Phosphoric acid (usually used for rust control on Steel) will remove oxidation from alloy in quite weak concentrations, but it leaves a very dark, flat and lifeless finish. Have a look at the final drive unit of my R65 as an example.

[Justin B.]

Eagle 1 mag wheel cleaner (for non-clear coated wheels) contains acid and does a pretty good job of bleaching out dark stains.  Follow instructions on the bottle...