I have yet more electricity questions! I'm getting there though....

A lot of the wires in the R1 loom, and I imagine most bike looms, are very small, e.g those that run to the sensors and display. I need to extend a few of these, and bought some red heat-seal butt splice crimps to do it.

The problem is, these wires are a bit smaller than 0.5mm^2 and the red crimp size crimp connectors don't seem to get a good grip on them.

Do I need to solder them up, or can you get crimps in a smaller size? I would actually prefer to use non insulated crimps then add my own heat shrink afterwards, but for some reason butt splices tend to be of the pre-insulated type, unless when dealing with very large cables.

Jek

Fold the wires back over the insulation then crimp the insulation too, may need a blue crimp instead, but gives a firmer hold anyway.

^^^^^^^^^^ What he said... seems a bit of a bodge but if you make sure you have plenty of copper wrapped around the outer insulation it seems to work pretty well

Solder the wires and then a couple of layers of sticky heat-shrink. The heat shrink supports the joint to avoid any chance of the solder getting work-hardened and snapping.

Put both wire ends in from one side and crimp. Then heat the splice, and clamp the end, with no wires, with the jaws of a pliers to seal that end.

I solder the wire ends first then crimp as the soft solder make it grip much better. Best its to use uncovered ones and heatshrink but if you already have the connectors

I would extend all wires to the dsired length with solder and small heat shrink. Make them end all in the approx same place then have one nice waterproof plug to put them all into. This means only one join, at a plug in each wire. Convienent for dash removal then aswell.

If you REALLy want to use crimps then just strip 4 X required length and fold them and over. I dont use solder due to work hardening the wire.

I would compare the cost of using decent connectors well fitted to the cost of recovery from a remote location because moisture has caused bad contacts between the wires and those badly fitted connectors..

i have had similar problems.....sometimes crappy terminals sometimes poor crimping pliers (even an expensive set of ratchet crimper's have given me grief ) i have now found a good set of crimping ratchet pliers from Maplins....