Help: Amp/superseal connector won’t plug in.

[Brian j]

I had an intermittent fault with the cam position sensor on my panda. Bought a new Magnetti Marelli sensor and switched it out, but now the Superseal connector won’t plug back in to either the old or the new sensor!

It came out absolutely fine and there is no obvious issue. The pins are straight on both sensors, there is nothing untoward contaminating the plug or socket that I can see.

It feels like the rubber seal is suddenly too stiff or too big. The plug slides in perfectly until the seal hits the plastic and then it won’t go any further.
The plug is kept about 1.5mm too far out to allow the connector to latch.
It is definitely not connecting because now I have an open circuit in MultiECU scan

I have never seen or come across this before.
Has anyone got any ideas what I can do to resolve it pls?

I have tried a tiny bit of lubricant with no success. I googled it with a total miss. I’m a bit stumped now!

 

[bugsymike]

I had an intermittent fault with the cam position sensor on my panda. Bought a new Magnetti Marelli sensor and switched it out, but now the Superseal connector won’t plug back in to either the old or the new sensor!

It came out absolutely fine and there is no obvious issue. The pins are straight on both sensors, there is nothing untoward contaminating the plug or socket that I can see.

It feels like the rubber seal is suddenly too stiff or too big. The plug slides in perfectly until the seal hits the plastic and then it won’t go any further.
The plug is kept about 1.5mm too far out to allow the connector to latch.
It is definitely not connecting because now I have an open circuit in MultiECU scan

I have never seen or come across this before.
Has anyone got any ideas what I can do to resolve it pls?

I have tried a tiny bit of lubricant with no success. I googled it with a total miss. I’m a bit stumped now!

Don't know if possible on your connector, but I have had similar issue in the past and to prove it was the rubber seal I gentle removed it with a screwdriver and plug connected easily, so knowing that was the issue I applied some silicon grease to the seal and was able to reassemble correctly with ease.
It may be the seal got contaminated with engine oil and made it swell.
I had something like that with the coolant hoses on an oil cooler after replacing after it failed leaking oil in to the coolant system, every water hose I disturbed had to have new seals.

 

[Brian j]

So. Just to wrap this up. I left the plug unplugged for a few days and it slotted in as easily as can be.

I think the rubber seal swole up when it got sprayed with brake cleaner to clean up the plug, and returned to normal after a few days.

Good reason to be careful where I spray brake cleaner in future!

 

[bugsymike]

So. Just to wrap this up. I left the plug unplugged for a few days and it slotted in as easily as can be.

I think the rubber seal swole up when it got sprayed with brake cleaner to clean up the plug, and returned to normal after a few days.

Good reason to be careful where I spray brake cleaner in future!

Always best to use proper electrical switch cleaner spray.

 

[Brian j]

Always best to use proper electrical switch cleaner spray.

I did use proper contact cleaner on the inside of the plug and the contacts, but the outside of the plug was caked in oil and I used brake cleaner to remove that. Lesson learned…