Twisting them together usually ends up with cold solder joints for someone who is inexperienced. Adding resistance is not something that should be recommended in this instance.

Unless you jump on the joint for a half hour, the joint wonīt break.

This does all of the extra work for you. The stock harness does not have some of the specific connections required for the more advanced head-units. In addition it gives a 5v remote on for the subs without having to do the resistor/voltage regulator on a 12v one to drop it to 5v yourself. The stock radio in some cases is even controlled via a can-bus signal, and the ACC line isnīt connected, so youīd have to run a line for this basic function for some of our later model pony cars as well.
This really just saves on headaches usually encountered on installs. Worth the money in most instances.

Solder, depending on what itīs made from, has a specific melting point. Having a station that can be set for a specific temperature is invaluable for this, harder joints that can dissipate heat faster usually attached to ground, and fine circuit-board work which your juggling soldering/de-soldering with not damaging the board/pads. Essentially, it can be far more precise going from what an equivalent 10w to 50w soldering iron would do.
For just soldering unconnected wires such as the case here, this is massive overkill and unnecessary.

 

For somebody that has never soldered, joining 2 wires end to end would not be
my recomendation.Solder joints break all the time regardless of being expierenced.Twisting wires does not end up with a cold joint unless the soldering iron/gun doesnt have enough heat.The amount of resistance you speak of would immeasurable and have no affect on what hes doing.

 

In bold above, was my point. Itīs far easier to note a bad joint putting 2 together IMO, twisting them together for the inexperienced has the effect of doing just enough to get the solder to melt partially, creating a bad joint that can break easily.

Iīve seen a few instances of this previously, IMO using the method I describe results in far less of these occurrences, as you are forced to thoroughly heat both to get them to properly adhere together. True this method if done improperly can add far more resistance, but in my experience tends to keep people from creating as many cold solder joints in the first place. *shrug*

Iīd like to see someone break one of mine even hopping up and down on it. I have yet to have one of these, using this method sometimes, to break on me down the road. Of course doing this for as long as I have might be the reason for it, and the other method be preferable for him. But I think heīd be fine in either case aside from beating on a good joint with a hammer or trying to flex it at the few mm joint itself extremely hard.

 

Since I purchased my Weller WES-51 Soldering station, I have become sooooooo spoiled with it.

EDIT: I also have used Kopr-Shield on the wires inside the crimp connector. Afterwards, I would put RTV on the each end of the connection then heat shrink over it. Never had any problems using that method either.

The only place I had issues no matter what method I tried was in my now deceased grandfather's boat. He liked using those 100% copper lugs for all his connections and the salt water just ate those up like there was no tomorrow.

 

So, I'm almost ready to order everything I need.

A few questions beforehand though:

I remembered that I have this:



It's a Bernzomatic Butane Torch with a solder tip attachment. I got it for the butane torch part, for pyrotechnics, but I remembered it had this attachment. Will this be sufficient, or will I need an actual soldering iron?

Next, what type of solder do I want? I noticed they have tons of types, with all different kinds of metal contents and gauges and whatnot. What do I want for the best conductivity?

 

That will be fine, I have a portable butane weller that is much the same thing. Another must have IMO if you do more than a bit of soldering, as some connections you canīt remove to put on the bench. Remember you have a finite amount of butane for this however. Can get a refill canister easily enough from a decent tobacco or drug store though. Try to keep it on the lowest maintainable setting, they are convenient, but tend to run hotter īn hell. Your trying to melt the solder, not the insulation on the wire.

Standard 60% tin, 40% lead, rosin core will do it. 0.032diameter. Still readily available by the look of it. Although Iīm sure it will be banned in California soon. They only welcome lead in their weed.

Yeah, the weller stations and even the decent Chinese knock-offs are worth their weight in gold if you do a lot of this.

 

Okay then. I think I have everything worked out. Now I just have to figure out what I'm actually doing with the wires and whatnot. I understand the process and what I need, but I'm still a bit hazy on what I need to solder to what...etc.

 

With the PAC unit, just bust out the two sheets with color = this on them. 1 for the PAC, other for the Pioneer. Match them up. Set īem together, put tubing on, solder, move tubing over joint, shrink, done.
In most instances the colors for the wires should match up. Just verify with the charts before ya solder each.

The only curveball that should be here is that diode, which should be explained easily by the pdf file that Iskwezm provided in another thread, and I linked to earlier here.

 

Yeah the diode thing seems straightforward. I guess what I'm confused about it less the color thing and more if I have to do any cutting.

The harness obviously has a bunch of wires that end in different female connectors. Do I chop all them off? or am I on the completely wrong track? There are two harnesses...one small one and a larger one, which I think is the same with the PAC setup.

This is probably a stupid question, so I'll apologize beforehand.

 

From that statement, sounds like you might be.

The PAC unit will provide the connectors to directly fit the carīs plugs.

There will be a molex connector for the pioneer, but this goes back into that radio when done. You are tasked with soldering the ends of these wires together, so the wires coming out of the molex from the pioneer are matched correctly with the ends from the PAC unit. Then all thatīs left to be done is to connect the pioneerīs molex into the radio and the 2(or 3 if you have aux)factory matching molex connectors from the PAC unit back into the carīs where you disconnected the shaker.

IOW, if you ĻchopĻ any ends off, you just fīed up. You will only be stripping the ends of existing open ended wires. Just do the diode as in the 3200 walk-thru thatīs stickied.