24 January 2021
Not much time in the garage recently with other family commitments. Got back out today for a few hours, and re-terminated the Superseal plug on the interior light circuit. Although previously I thought the connections were good, the pins would not lock into the holder correctly because the crimp tool I was too deep and crimped the locking tabs too. I'd ordered the correct tool and this seemed to work well, but still required care to make sure the locking tabs weren't caught. I decided to finish off the wiring from the gear box and the handbrake. I dug out the speedo sensor and reverse switch wiring. The reverse switch plug was looking quite corroded so I crimped on a new waterproof plug. I made up a wire for the handbrake and terminated it. I decided that the wire for handbrake switch should join in the loom with the gearbox wires so drilled a hole in the panel I'd made to seal the gearbox tunnel and inserted a grommet. I decided to fix some cable clips on top of the propshaft tunnel to hold the switch and while I was planning that I decided this would also be a good route for the wires that need to run to the back of the car for lights, fuel pump, fuel sender etc. so I added a couple more clips to run the entire length. The wires will go through the rear central bulkhead. When I make up the cover for tunnel it will hide the wires nicely. Before I was planning to run things down the side of the car but this is a much neater solution and keeps everything together. I ran spiral cable protector over the wires and started to form the loom. I need to run all the cables that are going to go to the back of the car so I can get the gearbox cover back in place. I drilled another hole in the engine firewall and passed the wires through it (and a grommet) the loom will split here so the wires for the rear go over the top of the gearbox and the ones for the front/side of the car will go across the bulkhead and down the side of the engine. I also need to permanently mount the lower rear bulkead so the wires can pass through the panel.
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1 January 2022
First day of the New Year. I added some Tiger seal between the horizontal tubes and the metal panels on the side of the cockpit to reduce panel rattles. I removed the fusebox panel and cut a hole for the wires to pass through and started mocking up where the cables would run. Then realised that once I started making these final connections that removing the fusebox would be difficult so decided that I needed to finish off the gearbox tunnel and the fusebox panel properly, including trimming them so that they could be put back in and not have to come out again. I know the vinyl I want to use but I haven't ordered it yet so that needs to be done. One thing I could get on with is adding some heat protection to the underside of the gearbox tunnel. The exhaust runs on the inside of the gearbox tunnel so I wanted to reduce the heat soak from that to the tunnel. An added benefit will be to reduce drumming from the large panel. I already had some heatshield material, left over from working on my TVR. I made some patterns from brown paper and cut out the material, being careful to get the pattern the right way up on the material. I used aluminium tape around some of the cutouts to stop them fraying. I cleaned up the inside of the tunnel with a sanding block and then wiped it clean with brake cleaner. I applied a good layer of contact adhesive to the metal and to the heat shield material. Once it had dried, I positioned each piece and pressed it down then used a roller to get it pressed on fully. I let it dry a bit more before running more aluminium tape around all the edges and again using the roller to secure it. 2 January 2021 Started to make a pattern for the gear lever panel heat-shield but decided not to line it until I have the brake lever panel made. Something that has been bothering me is that I couldn't remove the gearbox cover without removing the fusebox from the cover because the wires go through the fuse box panel I've just made. Had a long think about different ways I could mount the fusebox but then decided the easiest way was to enlarge the hole the wires go through. The fusebox is too large to pass through it but the individual modules can be unclipped and fed through without having to undo any wires. Then I turned back to the wiring, and terminated the main bettery cables on lugs. Added an earth bar to the underside of the dash bulkhead, attached the earth cable to it. I will use this to earth the various wires from the dash and fusebox. Then joined the cables for the rev counter, charge warning lamp, oil warning lamp oil gauge. Added ring terminals to the earth wires. Did some simple testing of the gauge and warning lamps to check the wiring I'd made, using a power probe. I still have a few more circuits to add to the car (temp gauge, brake light circuit, reverse light circuit as the switches for them are not in the dash. Ordered the vinyl and some scrim foam, edge trim, grommets, exhaust pipe gaskets, exhaust hanger rubbers, O2 sensor blanking plug USB charge ports and a USB panel connector for the the ECU cable. 10 January 2022 My edge trim has arrived so fitted that to the hole behind the fusebox. I decided my interior/map lights would be mounted on the sides of this panel. Checked the polarity of the LED lights I've bought and like the number plate lights white was the negative connection. Measured and cut out a hole in the panel for the lights and screwed them into position. I decided to try out my Superseal connections that I bought for the light circuits, on the map lights as I wanted to be able to disconnect them from the loom easily. Where they are shouldn't get wet but as I've not assembled this type of connection before thought it would be a safe place to try them out. Getting the terminals crimped in place was straightforward but had a bit of a problem getting the pins to push through far enough and as I wasn't familiar with how far they needed to go I ended up destroying one of the locking clips. I was going to put the fusebox back in the car so I could run the last few circuits but realised I had not mapped out which fuse position each of the circuits was connected to. Came back inside and spent some time updating my wiring diagram with the fuse box layout. I plan to print out a smaller version that can be laminated and sit inside the fusebox. |
AuthorThis is my first kit car although I've messed about with cars all my life. Archives
November 2023
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