All, I was doing the bars on my wife's RK and came across two different types of connectors. My research shows that HD uses Molex and Deutsch connectors. The Molex are square for the female and flat for male for the terminals. The Deutsch has a barrel for female and pin for the male terminals. I brought home a kit that I use at work that has various extraction tools and crimps but would like one for the garage. this kit was put together by an aircraft manufacturer and I didn't think to write down part number or anything and it'll be over a week before I'm back to take a look again.

What crimps and extraction tools do you have for each of the connector types? I'd like to add these to my various electrical crimps and tool selection.

 

I have a deutsch connector kit for work, they're the same connectors that Caterpillar uses on 90% of their heavy equipment. Just the tool to crimp the deutsch pins and sockets onto the wire are $300+ anywhere. It's a pretty complicated crimp tool that you slide the pin/wire into a barrel and as you squeeze the handle closed, 4 pins 90 degrees from each other press in and crimp the pin or socket barrel evenly on 4 sides. As far as releasing the pins/sockets from the connector, a 90 degree seal pic, or notching out the side of a small flathead screwdriver, will allow you to remove the center clips from the connectors, then just use a straight seal pick, or a tiny flat screwdriver, or a large paper clip to push the retaining tabs you find under the center clips you removed back away from the pins, then pull the wire for that pin out from the back of the connector.

For the molex connectors, a small paper clip has always worked for me for releasing the pins from the connectors. As for crimping new pins/sockets on, a Cat sure-seal connector has worked great. The tool is marked with an "A" and "B" slot, one crimps the smaller section around just the wire and the other crimps the larger section around the wire housing. I'll attach a pic of the sure-seal crimping tool, I've got it somewhere on my phone.

 

Here's the deutsch crimp tool that Caterpillar uses in their field service kits. The green screw/locknut sets the depth for the pin once it's slid in the other side, the dial is what sets the crimp depth by wire gauge.

 

I mainly use the HD crimper that is referenced in the manuals, but I have so many different crimpers, release tools, and kits that it is ridiculous. The HD to some may be expensive, but I didn't think it was that bad when I bought mine, because I know the difference between buying something of quality, or buying something cheaper only to end up buying the better one later, so I usually just buy the better one first. You can still find it sometimes for sell at a good price, but may have to buy a die for it, to have the latest ones.


If I was just goi9ng to buy some to put in my tool set, I think that there are a couple of different ones, depending on how elaborate you want to get, but I think these are actually good sets and are priced very reasonable, , , .


I looked and also found THIS. You can almost buy the other three and have almost every tool for almost every vehicle, but this is a good price for this tool, it's just not truly needed, but it is nice to have, but to get the #7 jaws (I have not priced them) from HD is probably as much as this person is selling the whole original kit for.