Disassembling D-Jet harness connectors

I practiced on some spare connectors and found it was easy to remove the contacts using a small screwdriver. But when I went to my car, I found that the connectors, although the same, had indents that looked like they may have been crimped after assembly. My car is an early North American 350SL 4.5L.

Anyone here had that problem? Can those connectors be disassembled?

Picture below of spare connector with no indents and Picture of connector on my car that doesn't come apart.

Hi Graham,

I have never seen the second version. it looks like the housing was melted to give better hold to the receptacles.

Interesting. It must be something they did on early cars. All connectors on my car are original and like that.

Hi Graham,
I don't believe in these connections are original from the factory.

Reason will be, all the isolators <rubber hoods> were replaced some time ago and the workshop didn't find another way to remove thecontacts than by force and then had the problem they couldn't fix the contacts in another way.

Removing the contacts by inserting a screwdriver is a suboptimal solution, too. There exist better fitting tools to do this job - I recently found a tool in an US-Shop: - quite expensive - www.eagleday.com/ampconnectors.html
Look at the tools. The correct tool for our connectors is the one towards your sight at the red tool.

No problem modifying a screwdriver for this task...

Dimension is 1.8 to 0.8 mm

Regards
Norbert

Norbert,
The connectors on my 72 car with the indents are original. No splicing of wires. And every size of connector has those indents.

The spare ones I got came off a sedan. A young guy on Benzworld found the car abandoned in a field and sent me a number of parts including a part of the harness (he just cut it !) It had the connectors without the indents that are easy to take apart.

So no one on oldtimers has seen those indents? I will have to have the Benzworld group check their old cars!

Hi,

I usually just steel a big needle from my wife when I want to release the receptacles from their housing. That works pretty well.

I had some of Benzworld owners check their D-Jets. We now have four with those heat crimps that prevent the plugs from being taken apart! One is a 1975 Euro 350SL, Others are North American 4.5Ls 72-74. Strange that you haven't seen those heat crimps in Germany.

I searched and finally found my spare set of connectors. None of them are heat crimped, so I could take them apart and use the plastic housings. My harness is showing it's age, so I will probably remove it, then decide on how to best restore.

Hi Graham,

I am sure that you have seen that repro-parts.de also has the housings if you want to replace them. And to be honest I am normally not repairing wiring harnesses. So I wouldn't notice if some had these heat crimps. My 450SL from 75 and some wiring harnesses from MB, Volvo and VW I have here do not show that either.

Hi graham,

Just a thought or possibility that came to mind.

Maybe this has been done to the connectors after checking in the factory and in original condition were seen as false for having connectors being too loose after production. This might be a way to get more positives in production, so they didnt have to lose too much time and cost with reproducing.

Kind Regards,

Sergio