Friday Replies:
Micky1Mo - Cheers.
Whilst it was a pain to fibreglass those brackets into place, at least now the hinges won't accidentally cut the loom in half!
Ed - Thanks for the tip, but I don't have any satin black to hand, so I will add that to the "come back to later pile".
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Saturday Replies:
Swifty - Cheers, and it certainly feels like a BIG step forward.
Psycho Pops - Thanks Stewart and it is nice to see you back posting again.
As I was thinking about you and your car the other day, when I posted a photo of your tail pipes on
Swifty's build thread.
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Landmark Afternoon - Part 1:
It had already been a busy morning before I finally got a chance to work on the car.
I started by drilling some holes along the length of my exhaust support bracket.
Some of these will act as earthing points and others will allow me to zip tie the loom into position.
Although it was only
after I fixed the first (of three) earth leads in place that I remembered this was "testing".
So the next two earth leads were fixed to a single hole like so.
Then it was time to change the number plate wiring, originally set up for 3 x LEDs.
I had to be very careful unpicking and removing this lot.
But eventually the number plate light could be left in front of the rear lighting board, so I could see the lights from the driver's seat.
Did I mention testing? As obviously this isn't the final rear wiring loom layout.
Then it finally was time to connect the battery and see if everything worked.
I even added my new key ring to the ignition key, so it was "dressed up" for the occasion.
At this point my wife & children were all out, which meant some of the testing was harder to do that others.
But here are the results:
Ignition Light - Turned the key and the red warning light in the speedo came on - Pass
Rear Lights - Noticed these were on before I had even
started testing - Fail
( Decided to keep going for now and see how everything else was doing. )
Indicators
- Left signal - Pass
- Right signal - Pass
- Hazard switch - Pass
- Dash board green warning light - Pass
Fog Lights - Pass
Car Horn - Pass
( Although these worked a little
too well, as I sounded like an inconsiderate minicab driver! )
Headlight Switch (Position 1)
- Side lights in headlights - Pass
- Number plate light - Pass
At this point I realised it was the brake lights that were on, not the rear lights, so I simply unplugged the brake light switch.
- Rear light (Driver's Side) - Pass
- Rear light (Passenger Side) - Fail
Headlight Switch (Position 2)
- Main Headlights - Pass
I then pulled a wheelie bin (with black sides) in front of the headlights, so I could see the reflections of the lights...
High Beam Lever
- Headlights - Pass
- Blue warning light - Forgot to check.
- High beam "Flash" - Something else I forgot to check.
Sorry there are no photos, but I didn't want to waste the battery climbing in and out of the car with the lights on to take them.
Overall, I was quite pleased with these results, but there was one epic fail.
Heater Fan Speed Switch
- The fan burst into life with an annoying noise at position I, then blew a 25A fuse in position II - Fail
I'll have to come back to the problem with the fan, but for now I started trouble shooting the lights...
I removed the brake light switch and adjusted the bracket to ensure it was completely square facing the pedal.
But no matter where I set this up, the brake lights would come on
before I pressed the pedal.
Thankfully my family returned at this point, when I had my head buried upside down in the foot well.
So I removed the switch from the bracket (again), wired it up & operating the "plunger" by hand, while my wife checked the lights.
It only took a few seconds to realise that somehow I have ordered/bought the wrong type of switch.
This one operates the lights when the plunger in
depressed, whereas I need one that operates the lights when the plunger is
released.
( As the mounting bracket is in front of the brake lever, which pushes against the plunger when at rest. )
Clearly, I can't fix that now, so I switched to the rear lights...
Swapping the connections over highlighted that the problem was with the passenger side light, not the loom, which was a good result.
So I put a new bulb in, but that still didn't fix the problem, but a closer inspection of the bulb fitting did explain it.
Unfortunately, the bulb holder part is broken, so I've have to order another light to fix that problem.
That concluded all the simple electrical tests, but there was one more dash board dial I wanted to check...
End of Part 1...