quarky42

INFORMATION ON PIN CONNECTORS THAT FIT THE WHITE AVIC-Z120BT / Z110BT HARNESS:

Maybe you broke a pin, maybe you want to keep your mute wire and don't want to disable an RCA port?

You need:

Molex Part# 08-70-1040 Pin Connector (AKA: Mini Pin Terminal)
1 piece of light gauge wire
Tool: Relatively Fine tip Needle Nose Pliers
Read / Print / Understand the Bypass Instructions, especially the part on how to PARTLY lift the cap that loosens the pin connectors in the harness and to understand which hole is the one you need to fill with a pin and connect to ground.


STEPS:

Strip a tiny piece of insulation off the wire. The middle set of crimp tabs should be able to wrap around the wire. The edge / outer set of crimp tabs should be able to wrap around insulation. You need to have the edge of the insulation in between those two sets of tabs to make a good sturdy terminal.

Twist the wires together tightly.

Crimp the shorter middle set of tabs first onto the wires. They should bend over and onto the wires. Press them tight with the pliers. You may need to gently squeeze the sides where the tab folded over to make the connector skinny enough to fit in the harness hole.

Crimp the taller tabs second over and onto the insulation of the wire. I used a little bit of a twist/roll technique to get the metal to wrap around the insulation. Once one tab has been pressed down over the insulation, then press the other tab over it. Do not overtighten this crimp. You want it to be snug but not squash the insulation.

Now you will need to squeeze the sides of this last crimp to make it skinny enough to fit in the White harness hole. I had to squeeze down on the top of the crimp too after making it tighter. Just be careful: Don't "overwork" the tabs otherwise they'll break from being bent too much.

It really isn't hard, but there is a technique to it. If I had a better video camera I would just shoot a video for you so you could see it.

Loosen the cap on the harness that holds the pins in place. Be careful to not pull the cap all the way out. You just want it to lift up a little bit. (I found that it was easier to lift the cap if I pushed in on the hole on the side of the harness connector. That released the clip a little bit and I was able to push it up from there.) Read the Bypass Sticky for more details on this cap if you don't know what I am talking about.

Slide the completed pin terminal w/ wire into the Bypass hole immediately next to the original location of the Mute wire.

Check the front of the connector to make sure you can see the pin terminal flush with the front of the connector to verify it is inserted all the way.

Press the cap back down to firmly lock the pin terminals back in place.

Finally, press the Bypass wire you just added into the socket with some force and take some electrical tape and tape the wire to one of its neighbors. This adds rigidity to the wire and keeps it held in place. (I did not verify that the pin was the same length as the original pins... I only verified that it was the correct size to fit the pins on the unit.

Don't forget that you still have to ground the light green parking break wire too.

Done.

PLEASE NOTE: I am OUT of pin terminals at this point. The last one is being sold today. I am thinking of maybe ordering some more terminals. Just not sure if it is worth it at this point. I'll leave the information below just in case and update this post if I decide to get more.

I USED TO have some more of these pin terminals if you want some. $3.50 should cover me mailing 3 pin terminals to you. (That way you could practice / mess up twice and still have a third terminal to do it. I did it right the first time so it really isn't hard, but they are very small so I could see someone messing up on accident. If your gentle and take your time, it is easy.)

$5 and I'll attach a single pin terminal to both sides of a short wire and mail the completed wire to you. Then you can just solder onto the wire after inserting the pin terminal. If you get it into the connector on the first try, then just trim the other end off so you can solder to it. Just be gentle and you won't break the terminal.

Or, you can buy your own set of terminals, since I've included the part number above. JameCo had a small minimum order of $10. Most places have huge minimum quantities or large minimum orders.

What's that, you want a picture of the completed pin? Sorry, two problems with that. 1> My camera doesn't focus real well on super tiny things very close up. I can work around that a bit, but the 2nd problem: 2> The pin is already installed in my harness and I'm not willing to pull it back out. *grins*... but I am willing to put a pin onto another piece of wire and take a photo of that in a few days after I finish a few other small projects. Happy now? *grins*


YOU CAN STOP READING HERE UNLESS YOU WANT TO SEE HOW I STUMBLED ACROSS THIS:
I discovered this pin would work in this harness a little by accident. I had bought some small Molex 2-pin connectors and mini pin terminals to go inside the connectors so I could modify a couple battery packs that I had. The batteries were compatible with my Home Alarm system, but the connectors were all wrong. It took me a while, but I finally figured out what kind of connector and pin terminals in the connector the damn things took, so I bought some from JameCo. (They only had a $10 minimum order... so I bought 30 connectors, 30 Terminals, and 20 of the related sockets for $17 after shipping. The price per terminal pin is less than 20 cents a piece, except that I had to buy a bunch of them. So you are wondering why I am asking for $3.00 for essentially 60 cents worth of pins. Well, last time I checked a stamp was almost 50 cents. Paypal charges a 40 cent fee... so there is buck gone already. Call it shipping and handling.)

My Amp Turn-On harness adapter/module has a Mute wire, so I went ahead and hooked that up. I am using most of the RCA connectors and didn't want to steal one of the remaining RCA connector pins to do the Bypass, so I looked around. I found that thread where that guy just stuffed some wire in the hole and grounded that. I was prepared to do that, but I remembered these pin terminals that I had so I pulled on out. I compared it to the harness and the size was a match. I was worried about the length a little bit, but decided to go for broke. I used some needlenose pliers to press the pin terminal onto one of the actual pins of the Head Unit. It was tight, but it fit perfectly. I spread the clips of the pin terminal a tiny bit and it was too loose, so I tightened them back up a little bit and it was perfect. It clamped onto the pin with enough force to make connection but still slid on and off. So, I wired it up as described above, and the pin terminal seated beautifully into the harness. I taped the Bypass wire to the wire next to it to add some rigidity and to keep the pin held forward in case the pin was a little shorter than the other ones in the harness. The harness seated smoothly the very first time and the Bypass works great.