My 04 Expedition needs the several coil and fuel injector connectors replaced because of broken retaining clips. The ones near the firewall are extremely hard to get to.

I know some of you are using tie wraps to secure the connectors, others are replacing only the connector using the existing pins and lastly some are soldering on new pig tails

Replacing just the connector housing on the pigtails or soldering on new ones near the firewall will be impossible without removing the entire intake manifold which I replaced yesterday and don't want to do again.

Seeing how the existing pig tails are very short and some near the firewall are very hard to reach, has anyone use the heat shrink crimp on splice connectors to crimp the wires together instead of soldering them?

I really don't understand why they keep the pig tails soooo short? Another three inches of wire especially in the back would make life soo much easier.

Thanks guys!

 

I have used those before. I also saw a guy on youtube that uses the simple un-insulated butt crimp with a piece of regular heat shrink over it. I think he did use the heat shrink that has the goo inside it. Looks like it would work.

Another question; Are the connectors you are worried about really in danger of working loose? If I have to really force them together when putting them back together, I usually don't worry about them coming apart.

 

Hi Franklin, Thanks for the quick reply. Over half of my retaining clips on my coils and fuel injectors are broken now. I change my spark plugs every 60k to 80k miles or so as recommended and yesterday I also replaced my intake manifold because of the dreaded antifreeze leak at the crossover. I think I broke another 4 or 5 clips yesterday. In the past, the plugs I broke seemed to hold good.

Yesterday after I had it all back together, everything was fine while getting the engine to circulate the new antifreeze. A couple hours later I went on a short drive and suddenly the engine started running rough and the Service Engine Soon light came on. Once I got home I put my ODB on there and I got a Injector Circuit Lean on cylinder 2 and 7 and a lean on Bank 1 and 2. I cleared the codes and pushed the plugs all the way back on and everything was fine again. Just picked up some small tie wraps to secure the plugs but I'm looking to replace to plugs.

The connectors on the coils seem to be a lot tighter than the ones on the fuel injectors. I'd hate to pull the Intake Manifold back off and possibly replace the expensive gasket again. It was a 6 hour job in the freezing cold yesterday and I broke a plastic PCV tube and the EGR Pressure Sensor nipple. Fortunately I had a piece of hose and clamps to go over the plastic tube but I had to buy a new EGR Pressure Sensor. Plastics just go brittle with the age and heat cycles. Thanks again

 

A trick I've learned over time is gently heating the COP and FI connectors with a hair dryer etc before releasing that clip---because they're so brittle after years living under the hood breakage is always possible.

Good luck with your fix!