screw head stripped from lead wire on bell housing..can i cut and recrimp?

[caddylover]

Working on my '91 alpha 1 Gen 2 mercruiser tonight and I was about to get started on changing my ujoint bellows and replacing my trim senders but i cannot get the lead wire to come off of the bell housing as the screw head is stripped. This is the wire that is attached to the port side gimbal ring and then to the port side of the bell housing. I can get a large phillips head in there but it is pretty much now a roberston, lol. In any case, i need to get this wire disconnected so i can pull the bell housing off. Can i just snip the wire and reconnect it with a butt connector or crimp? I don't want to try and take it off of the gimball ring as i don't want to chance stripping that one too.

Any suggestions?

 

[wellcraft-classic210]

Re: screw head stripped from lead wire on bell housing..can i cut and recrimp?

One suggestion

Have you tried grabbing the head of the screw with vise grips ? You would need the type with knurled jaw faces such as Irwin Model 10wr.

 

[RenkenII]

Re: screw head stripped from lead wire on bell housing..can i cut and recrimp?

I would say negative on the cut and crimp. Any open wire is just going to be trouble.

 

[caddylover]

Re: screw head stripped from lead wire on bell housing..can i cut and recrimp?

yes, did that, the screw head.....it's taking a beating now and only other thing that i can think of other than a recrimp with a butt connector is to drill a new hole in the bell housing and put a whole new screw in there but i don't think that would be necessary.

It's probably been about 10 - 12 years since that bell housing was off last as that was the last time the ujoint bellows was replaced. I can see why that screw is seized in there. I did try tapping it with a hammer to break loose any crud but to no avail.

 

[caddylover]

Re: screw head stripped from lead wire on bell housing..can i cut and recrimp?

A HAH! I GOT IT! It was pretty beat up but i tried it again with the vise grips on the screw head and twisted it back and forth a bit to loosen it and then it finally went albeit slowly.