Pigtails

[Rodney Bullock]

Pigtails...I need pigtails. No not like shirley temple, I need new pigtails for my 1940 Plymouth. The ones I have must have been the originals as they look horrible.I must have been in an awful rush when I put the car together, the ones I have should not have been able to light a flash lig much less a 6volt system. I wonder if any pigtail will do? Would I need a pigtail with thick wires for a 6volt, any help out there in mopar land?

[55 Fargo]

Hi Rodney, pigtails with 14 gauge would be okay, having a 12 gfauge for the hih beam side of the plug would be better, but if you can get 14 gauge pig tails, solder them together with your wire leads, shrink tube over that and yould be fine, in my books. Try not to use the crimp style butt connectors if possible, the vibration and elements have a way of loosening these up. And if you do go crimp ons, use a good quality crimping tool, for good solid crimps...........Good Luck

[De Soto Frank]

I wouldn't trust crimps for this application, unless you came back and soldered them .

A 6-volt, 50 watt sealed-beam pulls about 8.3 amps, so #14 wire should be adequate.

Rodney, in the past, I've carefully removed the female blade terminals from the bakelite plug block, cut the old wire off about 1 " from the terminal, stripped it clean, then spliced the new wire to it, solder, then two layers of heat-shrink tubing over top the joint, right up to the blade terminal; then re-insert the terminal back into the plug-block... time-consuming, but it works.

The sealed-beam plug configuration has been standard from 1940 thru to present (except for the "hi-beams" on quad systems), but I don't think you find as good a quality connector as your OEM...

This is definitely a case where "the devil is in the details"...

Good luck getting it all "clean & right" - you'll be amazed how well "those old 6-volt headlights can work" !

De Soto Frank

[Rodney Bullock]

Yes, 6volt headlights are bright, the 41 syudebaker that I have has great headlights. I took the headlight bezel off today and think my problem is a wire that was left off when I got my generator fixed, it seems this wire was for grounding as I took a test light and touched it to a power source and the test light lit up. I gounded it to the generator and reved the motor and the lights got brighter, I may have ruined the bulbs so I am going to get another set. The pigtails are fine now, got some nos ones from a friend. thanks all