I had a VIPER alarm installed on my 99' when it was new. When the remote took a shit about 5 years ago I stopped using it and simply disabled the alarm with the Valet switch. Well, everytime I would disconnect my battery and reconnect it was a hassle to disable and not to mention the alarm would sound for several minutes. I ended up removing all of the components in the engine compartment (Siren, ground wires, and etc) and worked my way to under the dash. The hacks at Circuit city had spliced into the main wiring harness and used nothing but electrical tape to hold the wires together. I ended removing the tape and doing a little neater job. I didn't have access to a solder gun so I only used Electrical tape... Is this O.K? Should I open it back up and use solder?
It will be fine with electrical tape as long as you did a decient job with it. Personally I use heat-shrink to splice wire on my tacoma, but I had used electrical tape on the last 3 or 4 cars I have played around with.
I would recommend soldering it. If you don't have a soldering gun, then i would use crimp connectors. 12 volts doesn't seem like much, but its the amps that run through the wires that create heat.
Electrical tape should hold up, as long as it's done neatly and is wrapped tightly.
Just go buy a soldering gun. They're like, $6.00 at WalMart and then spend $0.94 on a tube of rosin core solder. You may or may not need it for the project you're working on now, but I guarantee you will have a project in the future that calls for one.
I actually bought two tubes of solder. I used the entire first tube on practicing and getting the technique down on scrap wire and connectors.
I had a bunch of crimps so I went to town on it. I haven't used a solder gun since H.S. and I didn't want to make a mess. I'm going to buy one and practice though. Thanks for the advice everyone.
Both of them were broke. New batteries wouldn't work. I will check around the garage for them but I think I chucked them.
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