Ignition harness repair

[BaldEagle]

Evening all,

Brains here pulled too hard on an ignition lead and broke the plug.  The harness is less than 2 years old so looking at repair options.  This is a dual mag harness for a 1978 J. Kelly Aerospace sells individual leads as a kit but a special tool is required to install and that seems to be impossible to find.  Replacing the harness isn’t an option either as no one has stock. Sooooo, it looks like my only option is to send it off somewhere that can repair / overhaul.  Any suggestions….?

[Hank]

I had a dead lead on a 100-hr harness. My IA replaced it with the kit (almost the same price of a new harness) for 1 hr labor plus travel time from his base to mine.

[OR75]

3 hours ago, BaldEagle said:

Evening all,

Brains here pulled too hard on an ignition lead and broke the plug.  The harness is less than 2 years old so looking at repair options.  This is a dual mag harness for a 1978 J. Kelly Aerospace sells individual leads as a kit but a special tool is required to install and that seems to be impossible to find.  Replacing the harness isn’t an option either as no one has stock. Sooooo, it looks like my only option is to send it off somewhere that can repair / overhaul.  Any suggestions….?

what tool are you looking for ?

 

[ZuluZulu]

Howdy neighbor. Aero Accessories at KVNY might know where to look.

http://aeroacc-vny.com

818-785-2821

[BaldEagle]

14 hours ago, OR75 said:

what tool are you looking for ?

 

I need a 11-10386 Ferrule seating tool.  My IA has one, which he loaned to someone, who is out of town for a few months.  Looks like I also need a W-111 M crimping tool.  Easier to just find a shop that I can send the harness to for repair at this stage, but most places seem to be closed this week.  I spoke to a couple of A&Ps and both said to just replace the harness as they are cheap, but that’s academic as no one has stock (Kelly Aerospace 10-821414-8 replaces the original harness).

[BaldEagle]

11 hours ago, ZuluZulu said:

Howdy neighbor. Aero Accessories at KVNY might know where to look.

http://aeroacc-vny.com

818-785-2821

They are awesome, they repaired an alternator for me and turned it around in 24 hours.  They seem to be closed this week though.

[Ragsf15e]

3 minutes ago, BaldEagle said:

They are awesome, they repaired an alternator for me and turned it around in 24 hours.  They seem to be closed this week though.

Sounds like you don’t want new, but did you try New Horizons?  They make the Maggie harness.  They are in SoCal too.  Maybe they can fix yours or make a new one.  They’re great to work with in the past.

https://www.maggieignitionsystems.com/contact-5

[BaldEagle]

2 minutes ago, Ragsf15e said:

Sounds like you don’t want new, but did you try New Horizons?  They make the Maggie harness.  They are in SoCal too.  Maybe they can fix yours or make a new one.  They’re great to work with in the past.

https://www.maggieignitionsystems.com/contact-5

Thanks for the recommendation!

[BaldEagle]

Decided to go the Maggie route, lots of positive reviews so looking forward to installing this.  I’ve not had much luck with Kelly Aerospace stuff (also had one of their alternators crap out on me and it was less than 3 years old) so easily persuaded to replace rather than repair.

[EricJ]

28 minutes ago, BaldEagle said:

Decided to go the Maggie route, lots of positive reviews so looking forward to installing this.  I’ve not had much luck with Kelly Aerospace stuff (also had one of their alternators crap out on me and it was less than 3 years old) so easily persuaded to replace rather than repair.

Let us know how that goes, and if they'll do dual mag harnesses.    I still have my old harness that I'd like to send out for refurb/repair/replacement for a spare, and they'd be a good candidate.

[BaldEagle]

1 hour ago, EricJ said:

Let us know how that goes, and if they'll do dual mag harnesses.    I still have my old harness that I'd like to send out for refurb/repair/replacement for a spare, and they'd be a good candidate.

I’ll report back here.  They do dual mag harnesses, slightly longer turnaround though (they quoted me 2 weeks).  The person I spoke to was super nice.

[BaldEagle]

On 12/28/2023 at 3:42 PM, EricJ said:

Let us know how that goes, and if they'll do dual mag harnesses.    I still have my old harness that I'd like to send out for refurb/repair/replacement for a spare, and they'd be a good candidate.

I just got this back and installed this morning.  It comes with a baseball hat, an American flag and a branded coaster, attachment hardware, paperwork, and they even paint the nuts blue.  They clearly have pride in their product. An interesting observation, the old cap I sent them they noticed that it was painted but not primed so the paint just flakes off, and the cables lengths were out of spec with too much slack.   These guys strip, prime and paint, and assemble the harness to spec, and the price point is reasonable.  Very positive experience, thanks all for the recommendation!
 

[OR75]

care to share approximate cost ?

pm if prefer to keep it non public

 

[BaldEagle]

24 minutes ago, OR75 said:

care to share approximate cost ?

pm if prefer to keep it non public

 

About $700.  You send in the old harness because they need the cap.  I think I paid $800+ for the Kelly Aerospace harness, but they give you a $100 credit if you send in the old harness.  This is the for dual harness of course (D2000/3000).

What I like about the Maggie harness is that if I break another lead I can send the harness in and they will replace or repair the lead if it's one of their harnesses.  Before I went this route I ordered a replacement lead "kit" from Spruce for the Kelly harness and it was $260.  For a single freaking lead.  My A&P/IA knows how to replace these leads, but we could not find the tools to install it in any case so that was a good exercise in frustration.