Electrics

Well, the strategy of making sure we get the electrics working 100% before rushing to put the car back together is paying off. Yesterday, I scuttled into the garage and assisted by Terry starting wiring more things up. We made a check list of everything and slowly but surely the car began to awake from its years of slumber.

From number plate lights to boot lamp, instrument illumination to dials, clocks, fan and exterior lamps it began to come to life.

Having had problems with the headlamp lift actuators and motors, we disassembled and rejuvenated the headlamp stalk switch and the hazard switch (the latter due to erratic indicators and hazards).

The lamps stalk switch predictably fell apart and we were left with an assortment of springs, a ball bearing and various "weeee bits" (they go "weeee" when you check them over your shoulder, having decided the part can do without them. Actually, we didn't really chuck anything). The Micky Mouse contacts were cleaned up and the whole thing put back together feeling altogether tighter than before.

That done, the hazard switch was stripped surprisingly easily and again its contacts cleaned before reassembly.

By the way, and I forgot to say, the wiper motor and rack went back in the car and worked a treat although I don't think it is parking correctly. There's an adjustment for that, but more another time. We're doing lights at the moment, right?

So, onto the headlamps and their wretched lift actuators. We connected up the lamps themselves and all was well, hurrah. But the actuators themselves were being a pain: the driver's side went up when it should have gone down and vice versa, and the passenger side, well, didn't really do anything.

First things first, we swapped over the whole assemblies. The faults swapped side, so we knew the problems were with the motors rather than wiring. As it was blowing a gale even inside the garage and these two old blokes get cold easily, we retired to the house and stripped the motors.

Alas I don't have photos but what we found was this:

Actuator A: the big cog inside the motor was 180 degrees "out". That'd be why it went up when it should have gone down. We rectified that. Why was it like it? My fault, I had refurbished these motors a while ago and got it wrong, obviously;
Actuator B: Two problems here: the contacts on and under the brass strip in the mechanism had tarnished to the point of no conductance, so the run/stop switches were inoperative. We gave them a good clean and hoped for the best. Secondly, some of the wiring was very iffy so we cleaned and resoldered them.

Now full of cornish pasties, soup and hope, we scuttled back into the garage and connected everything back up. Guess what? Both worked! Up, down, down, up, flash, the whole lot.

We then set about tidying everything up, cleaning connectors, screwing the relays back in, attaching the switch stalks etc and generally making the car look presentable in a slightly Terminator way. We were allowed to do that now as the lights popped up and down, and represented the last electrical frontier. I made a video.

Then the passenger side actuator started going weird again and the daylight faded, so we had to call it. At the end of the day we had achieved a huge amount, with nearly all of the electrics working. From a bare shell and a box of wiring loom, we had woken the car. That's still a result.

So, more next time and in the meantime here's my latest cinematic epic. Terry is the hand model again, in the scene with the interior light and door. At this rate I will have to pay him royalties.

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