Zel's Fleet Blog - BX, Jag XJ-S, Sinclair C5, Mercedes 208D & 230TE, AC Model 70.

[Hell Razor5543]

What was it Malcolm (citronut) called ECP? Ah, yes, I remember. "Euro Crap Parts".

[Zelandeth]

Okay...The lighting for the speedometer is in fact *not* a Ba7s lamp as I thought it was...Annoying. I'll investigate further tomorrow to see if I can work out what it is.

First task of the day though was to fit a non-return valve into the feed to the windscreen washer pump. This should stop the water draining back to the reservoir and requiring a million pushes of the button before anything gets to the washer. Have to admit for a manual washer pump I'm really surprised at the volume of water it gets onto the screen and the pressure with which it delivered.

Have successfully had life out of the indicator circuits now - especially having worked out which terminals to short out on the stalk (which is *utterly* knackered) so I can actually get life out of both the dash lamp and the exterior ones. Looking at it more carefully I think there's actually an entire part of the assembly outright missing.

The flash rate is a little higher than I'd usually like, but I think it'll be perfectly fine for a vehicle of this age. If anything else, the pattern being different to you'd expect from a modern car is a good thing as it makes it more visible, and with a car this small you want every bit of visibility you can get.

The more exciting part of this for me though is this...

Which confirms to me that the front-rear lighting loom is in fact intact.

...Even if the fact that it was the brake light that started flashing did initially confuse me. The previous owner has managed to put the backplate on upside down. The indicator is actually meant to be at the top, I'll turn it around tomorrow. Now I better understand the lighting loom, running the missing section from left to right shouldn't be too hard. Just three wires. With a bit of luck, tomorrow I'll have fully functioning rear light clusters.

That's quite a bit boost to me as I was worried that was going to be a lot of extra work.

Another boost was that in having sorted out a number of dodgy grounds etc and such like was that this happened too.

Yep, the windscreen wiper is now working just fine too. Self parking is a bit touchy, but that's entirely due to the rocker switches which we've already mentioned. I note that the Lucas replacement for the wiper one is actually a "two speed" version, so if I do fit that later I may well stuff a timer unit in there to give me an intermittent option, as that's actually a nice thing to have.

The list of vehicle systems needing to be brought back to life is actually shrinking quite a bit now.

May well look at getting the floor sorted out this coming week. The main brake line (which was the thing that was going to be the most awkward) has been replaced now and I've ascertained that the wiring loom under the floor is in perfect order, so no reason not to really. Be nice to actually have a floor and a seat in it!

In case you wondered, seating is going to be provided by the driver's seat from my old Xantia. I was originally planning to use this for an office chair, but this is a more immediate need. Yes it's a bit of a departure from originality and all that, but my spine will thank me for it.

Need to get myself a set of number plates made up for it as well. Will be in the correct typeface of course...modern ones would just look daft on this.

[van ordinaire]

Bit surprised the wiring doesn't follow the standard "British" i.e. Lucas, convention, which used to make electrical work so much easier, especially on basic vehicles sucg as this.

Correct period font for plates is a touchy (grey?) area, not that I seek to dissuade you from your proposed course - because I happen to agree with you.

[Zelandeth]

It's possible that the original plates might yet turn up. They were with it when it was rescued by the previous keeper - but that was in the very early 2000s. This won't be getting black and silver as it's too late. Most likely would have had the sort with the plastic 3D lettering on a metal back plate originally. Not sure my bank balance will stretch to that though so it might need to make do with some acrylic ones for now.

If the originals turn up and are serviceable that will of course be the best outcome.

This evening I decided to clean the speedometer up a bit. It was full of cobwebs before and one thoroughly dessicated spider. That was going to drive my OCD mad.

Being a typical 3.5" Smith's motorcycle style unit it had the twist-off bezel so was easy to get in to. Everything internally was actually in surprisingly clean condition behind the face, so I didn't mess with it. The only thing which seemed amiss was that the grease on the input coupling was quite gummy. Cleaned as much of that out as I could then put a fresh blob in there, it turns nice and freely now.

Didn't clean up too bad at all.

The wiring does largely follow that convention I think, however it's not something I've really done work with before, so I'm still learning it a bit.

The wiring isn't proving too bad really so long as it's tackled methodically - quite a few bits just didn't initially make sense because so many bits were missing. Having plugged a few of the gaps it's making a lot more sense now. Especially now I've mostly tracked down the bits which differ slightly from the diagrams that predate the car by 3 years. Given the degree of hand assembly involved no two seem to be the same.

A fair bit of head scratching was caused also due to a dodgy indicator stalk as behaviour wasn't making sense due to how many contacts are involved and it behaving inconsistently.

Astonishingly, the hydraulic service braking system is the only thing that's outright not working now I think! You wouldn't have thought that a few weeks ago when it was a lifeless hulk.

[CitroJim]

Zel, you really are cracking along with this project! Kudos to you doing all this is the cold too! My fingers would have given up very quickly...

Sadly, although I can keep them warm whilst cycling now I loose all nimbleness and could not work with them....

It seems perfectly fitting to fit the AC with a Xantia seat They are, after all, nice and comfy...

Anything else Xantia-related you wish to fit?

[Zelandeth]

To be fair, being able to work inside when it's too cold has helped a lot. Our garage retains heat surprisingly well. That's why quite a bit of stuff has been so randomly ordered - because when the weather's been too chilly I've been working inside. You've seen my garage though, so access is more limited! Means I have to pick and choose tasks a bit more.

Need to get the battery moved back to its proper home next...need to build a battery tray first though.

[Zelandeth]

Well that was painless!

Couple of hours spent sitting out in the lovely sunshine this afternoon tidying up some of the engine bay wiring and reconnecting the tail lights properly. One thing I did change was to do the earthing locally. Originally they were grounded through a wire in the loom which went all the way back to the front bulkhead ground point. I decided that was daft, so grounded both ends of that wire, and stuck a ground connection to each cluster to a bolt under the ignition coil bracket on the near side, and the voltage regulator bracket on the offside.

Sure enough, look at that...we have fully functioning tail lights.

(Note that there's no hazard flasher functionality - I may well add that via a "bolt on" unit as it seems a useful feature to have).

I was expecting a bit of a battle to get all three bits working at once, but nope...Brake, tail and indicators all operate correctly without having any effect on each other.

They are currently missing their gaskets, so I'll need to come back to that at some point in the future, but it'll do for now.

Glad to report that the dashboard indicator is also behaving itself. You've no excuse for forgetting to turn the indicators off in this thing as it's by far the brightest light on the dash - I had to use the flash to get this photo without it totally washing out. Amber is the one for the indicators, again like quite a few other cars from this era (and still quite common on motorcycles I believe).

Sadly the fuel gauge is totally open circuit, so will need to pick up a new one to replace that at some point.

[CitroJim]

Another excellent day of progress Zel She's looking good in the sunshine

[Zelandeth]

Started first touch without any carrying on again as well.

Really will need to start thinking about bodywork soon I reckon...time to start nudging those who know about such things. Especially as whether any donor mouldings (no matter how rough) will probably have an impact on how I go about sorting the floor...

Hoping I can track something down... especially as I don't need any glass, trim etc...I just need the mouldings. Not fussed if they're rough as anything either...repairing GRP isn't that bad really...rebuilding from scratch is harder!

Thinking I may stick the headlights and front indicators on a bit of wood or something so they have a better placeholder to make it easier to see if things are working properly. Currently it's kind of hard to see.

[Zelandeth]

Time is going to be short today, but this just arrived in the post.

Hopefully that will restore reliable operation of the indicators and headlights (without needing to use a pair of pliers to change direction!). Has a different connector (Land Rover specific I believe) but is otherwise identical, and is easily sorted with some crimp terminals. Will report back later.

[Zelandeth]

The only difference (aside from the connector - which may well have been on the original one when it left the factory for all I know) I could see on the new stalk was that the new one has a purple wire that doesn't exist on the original. I've just terminated it and left it alone for now - guessing it might be a feed for a dim/dip device or something like that as it looks like it leads into the contacts that handle the headlight switching.

Pretty quick and painless job to get it wired in and the cover back in place.

...Though we did initially have a bit of a head scratcher, in that turning the indicators on resulted in all four flashing (and the flasher unit sounding distinctly unhappy about this). Took a bit of head scratching, but it turned out to be that the screws I'd used to fasten it to the column were too long and were bridging the contacts for the left/right selection. Switching them out for some that were slightly shorter resolved that issue and got things working as they should.

The offside ones still flash slightly faster than the nearside ones for some reason, will sort that out later. My money's on dodgy tail light earths until proven otherwise.

Funny how adding something like this does so much to make the dash look more complete.

I've not wrapped the wiring for this again yet, as I think I want to make it a bit longer as it currently pulls more on the loom at full right hand lock than I'd like. That's a job for another day when it's warmer though and I've more time.

In other news, the fuel gauge has revived itself! Noticed today that it was "twitching" when I turned the ignition off - and sure enough, it now responds as it should do to varying the impedance between the connections for it. Guess I'll pull it out of the dash for a clean then if it's going to work.

[ekjdm14]

Just a quick thought on the superfluous wire, could it be an extra/alternative feed for the dipped beam to work with quad lamps where the dipped stays on when main beam is in use?

[Zelandeth]

Just a quick thought on the superfluous wire, could it be an extra/alternative feed for the dipped beam to work with quad lamps where the dipped stays on when main beam is in use?

Not a bad thought. It's definitely intended for something reasonably heavy as it's a thick wire. Would have expected it to be blue really if it was though based on the general wiring scheme where everything headlight related is blue (from memory, solid blue is dip, blue with a white trace is main beam and blue with a red trace is side/tail).

Granted I've not actually looked up the official legend for the colour code yet...really should do.

[van ordinaire]

The standard (British) colour coding is:-
blue: head lights
blue/red: dip
blue/white: main beam
red: side/tail lights
purple: +ive, via fuse

I have an aftermarket hazard kit that appears from time-to-time, but looking for it would be a shortcut to madness. For some reason, it has never been placed with all of my autoelectics stuff (none of which I can find at the moment) so it'll suddenly just pop up. Next time it does, I'll let you know.

[Zelandeth]

Most of the kits seem to be pretty simple.

Five wires - one for the left indicator circuit, one for right, a +ve feed, a ground and sometimes an output for a separate warning light. The flasher is built in to the unit.

Probably be looking for one at some point I think as having hazard lights just seems sensible - especially in something that's probably going to be - how shall I word this... something of a reliability liability...like this car!

Thanks for that wiring key. Definitely sounds like they've used that (or a close approximation of it) throughout.

Only differences between this and the old stalk (aside from the aforementioned additional purple wire) is that the horn wire is a different colour. It's purple with a black trace on the old one, brown with a black trace on the new one. Ground is solid black on the old one and solid brown on the new one.

...At least they're not using red for ground lines everywhere and black for lives like another car maker I've spent time messing with the products of. Vauxhall...yes, I'm looking at you.