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Kevin,

I happen to be making a 56 TL harness for another customer pretty soon. So of course I could make you one as well, or if you want to DIY it I will have the materials on hand in a couple weeks. Could sell you a kit for ¢¢ instead of $$ so to speak.

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This is pretty true and I don't know why it is. Good soldering, much like good welding, mainly requires just three things: knowledge of what a good joint looks like, decent equipment, and some practice. Unlike welding, though, the investment for a decent soldering setup is only like $50 nowadays, and can be used or stored almost anywhere. And like welding, it's hard to have a good substitute for it. When you need it, you need it.

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Yeah, They just don't teach that in shop class. Not sure they ever did. My father worked for Michigan Bell Telephone Company, and later AT&T from 1941-1986. He taught me how to solder when I was 12-13 years old, 'the Bell way". Later I went to vocational school for industrial electronics, did a lot of soldering there. Then started my first real full time job at 18 working for an electronics manufacturing company and I soldered every day for 11 years, and had access to tools and supplies that made the process easier, faster, and more reliable. Most car guys have one of those induction guns, which isn't a great tool. But that's all they know. Never heard of using liquid flux. Those are the ones that attempt soldering. Most go right for the crimp connector assortment and tool.

Nice work John.

I put splints on to keep wire from bending at solder joints

I grew up with one grandfather being an electrician and the other being a radio and TV repairman so learned to solder at a very early age. I earned my first dollar repairing a radio (a tube-type battery-powered radio!) and built my first theremin when I was 10 from little more than a schematic and a pile of components. I also built an electronic two keyboard organ at 14. Anyway, the list goes on and on so I do know how to solder but learned recently to stay away from Weller produces after a couple failures in a row. My TV repairman grandfather always used Weller so I have too but their quality simply isn't what it once was.

Mr. Pushbutton - thanks for chiming in! I probably should rewire the whole TL system at some point. There is definitely still a problem in the "down" circuit and I haven't pulled everything back apart to check it all. Ground is not consistently sent to the solenoid. I'll double check the heater contact in the box and the wire connections at the limit switch to see what's up. If I can get everything working consistently now then I'll run with that and plan a full rewire a bit later. My only available parking spot is where the lift is, and I have several projects lined up to use the lift over the next month or two and I will need the 400 to be able to move and drive and get out of the way. I know I can drive without TL, but it will also need to go on the road as I test and repair other problems. That is some beautiful soldering by the way.

Carfreak - thanks for letting me know. I'm so used to the '51-54 cars and am finding that the '56 is a different beast altogether. It seemed the '51-54's tended to sit in the middle or right above the middle, and run at about 175-190 typically. Good to know that other '56's are reading low. As long as it's not a problem then I will leave the temperature concerns alone. I'll probably drain and flush the system before summer time for good measure.

PGH - I may take you up on acquiring the supplies to rewire the TL. Again, probably not a project that I can/should do right now but I have no problem doing it before this year is up.

What soldering gun is everyone using? I'm using a smaller pencil-type because I do a lot of soldering on small electronics. But it really doesn't have enough juice to handle larger wires like these cars have.

a.co/d/j3zYXzL

Don't bother with anything cheaper. It won't be an upgrade.

Maybe go 100 or 150W depending on budget.