Saturday, October 23, 2021

From bad to worse

 So, the front sidelights work from the switch as they should.

But and it's a big but, the car won't start. Not so much as a click, tick, grunt or whine.

Just a deafening silence.       And, the front lights plus indicators are all on permanently.

I have been checking and maybe fiddling with the ignition relay and starter relay. It seems I have an extra brown/white wire at the relay....wtf.

Just look at the mess of spaghetti. And I still have an errant brown and errant green wire near the coil. 

I hope I've not fried the internals of the coil or relay.



I took the opportunity to link up wifeys car with a full battery, not that it made any difference. 
I cannot understand why the indicators are on, FFS they are on different circuit.

I'm beginning to think I'm in over my head as I've had about for days of staring at the wiring diagram, testing continuity, checking connections and sŵapping wires as per advance auto wire diagram.

So any comments or advice would be massively appreciated, even better pop round my place and help.

Even wifey is getting somewhat irate at me spending so much time on it and not cutting the grass etc.

Not posting any more till I've made some progress. 
There, that's me throwing toys out of the pram.

I did trim my beard though, time for wine and spotify to try and improve the mood


Saturday, September 25, 2021

Wiring woes

 Well at least I got the headlights and sidelights working. Was relatively simple once I worked out the wire positions.



One really annoying thing was that the rubber bullet connector housings in the left/right transition had no internal metal ring to hold the bullets each end. It was reliant of the bullets being pushed in far enough for their ends to touch. No wonder it took so long to check the continuity before snipping wires. So, I attached new spade terminals to the green and red wires each side, deleted the rubber bumper sidelights in the headlamp bowl and bingo. Main headlights both sides, dipped beam both sides. The puzzle from the last post has been resolved, it was a poor bullet connector on the blue/ red circuit.

That took all day whilst waiting for the phone to ring as I was on call. So far well into Saturday night It's still not rung, so far so good.


That only leaves the relay to fathom out. What bodge job has been done god only knows. The original rubber bumper indicators had odd yellow wires going to a "Fiat" relay and a yellow wire wedged into the bulb with a small screw !!!!


Like an Idiot I forgot to note all the connections to and from, but did discover the live wire ( purple ). I had bought a few weeks ago a spare relay from Halfords so I'll probably wire that in instead of the crusty one above. I've YouTubed the connections to death this last hour so tomorrow (Sunday) I will give it a go weather permitting.

After consulting the wiring diagram for hours on end I realised the hazard warning switch could be important so, as it was the only switch that didn't disintegrate years ago on, I took a look.

Disaster struck. That too fell apart on inspection. Completely unrepairable, the pivot lugs had snapped and it all fell into the footwell. One thing I have noted about Lucas electrics is the electrical parts are really good, logical and quality. The mechanicals of the switches are not. Tiny, crude, fiddly and prone to wear.

Happiness


Sadness

Still don't know what the loose purple wire is close to the ignition wiring , plus a stray live red wire above the accelerator pedal.  Let me know in the comments if you do............please



To recap, more fiddling and staring at the wiring diagram till I can get the indicators flashing front and rear. I'll settle for just the fronts for now though. Might have half a morning of tomorrow , go for a walk and coffee or might just stay in bed late, if only. More soon.