Vulgalour's Vehicles - 10/03 Ignition Switch Woe

[vulgalour]

Today, Chompy and I got on with electrical stuff on the Princess. Mostly, I was cleaning bulbs and operating controls, Chompy was the one doing the wiring work because he's good at it and understands it. Previously, the headlights had been fitted but not tested, at some point the earth wire had gone missing for them which is strange as there was no reason for that to be removed. I may not do the hideaway grille on the front because it looks really good just as it is right now.




Much of the original wiring loom didn't need altering. After checking which wires did what and a lot of fiddling about with old connectors, Chompy had figured out which of the original spade connectors went to which part of the BMW units and soon had them all wired up and fully operational. This was part way through proceedings. The wiring diagram in the workshop manual (not Haynes) doesn't actually exactly match my wiring loom, but then neither do the instructions for the carburettor so we weren't massively surprised by that.


We then had an issue with the driver's side outer light unit in that the lens wasn't aligned properly with the light quadrants so half the reversing light illuminated with the brake light Annoyingly, the only resolution was to rotate the unit to get it all properly aligned and now it sits pointing in slightly the wrong direction because the backing plate is at the wrong angle. This is very easy to fix, it just means un-welding and re-welding the backing plate at the correct angle. A job for later, there was no way I was tackling that today.


Chompy and I plodded on with the job until we got all of the rear lights functioning. I need to get a couple of bulbs as with them being old second hand ones, several did die or were already dead. At the front, we got the indicators, sidelights and at one point all of the headlights working. Then only the driver's side headlights worked and now I only have the outer driver's side headlight working on main beam so we need to investigate what's going on there. It's probably a problem with the earth or the switch or both.


At the back there's a few bulbs missing so to explain, outer units have running lights (lower outer quadrant) which is also the reflector, brake lights (upper outer quadrant), reversing lights (upper middle quadrant) and indicator (middle). Inner lights have running lights (lower outer quadrant), brake lights (upper outer quadrant) and indicators (middle). I was going to put the fog lights in the inner units but there's no way of splitting off the light for the two halves of the red lenses to do this because of how they're designed. I'll have to rethink that side of things, I do have some spare fog lights if I need to fit them or I might be lucky and the car may pre-date the fog light requirement (even though I'm pretty sure it doesn't).


Tomorrow we're getting the hydraulic repair pipe, the bulbs we need to replace and we'll hopefully be finishing tidying up the wiring loom and heatshrink wrapping the last few joints it got too dark to finish tonight. We may even figure out why the headlights aren't working and why the indicators and hazard lights got more and more recalcitrant about working as the day went on.

[JPB]

Vehicles first used on or later than the 1st of April 1980 need the rear fogs. For MOT, they only have to work and there are no requirements to have them fed from the dipped beam supply as they are for SVA. Neither do the fog lamps need to be set the SVA minimum 4" from the stop lamp filaments for the MOT, all you need is a fog lamp and a switch that operates a reminder lamp.

..Unless of course these vehicles are Japanese imports in which case they can go through SVA and their first UK MOT without the compulsory rear facing high intensity lamp between the offside and the centre of the car.

Lasers are now common in place of conventional or LED rear fogs, they're legal in some EU countries so get a UK precedent set before March 2019 and you too could have an interesting, three dimensional light pattern. It's technically possible to use the lasers to make words too..

[vulgalour]

V5 has the car first registered 1st of October 1980 so that means fog lights have to be fitted, which is what I expected. As amusing as words written in lasers would be, I'll probably just use the nice stainless steel bodied Wipac fog lights I've got

[JPB]

stainless steel bodied Wipac fog lights

I had a pair of such things on one of my older Reliants, they're well made compared to any more modern alternative and should look right at home on the Wedge.


On the subject of the Princess; is that James May's face on the graphic seen on the o/s/f wing? Is that a commercially available thing?
I could fancy applying a similar icon to the roof of the recently acquired 21st century Toyota, mainly to give passing helicopter pilots something to brighten their day, but that with luck would also divert the seagull crap away from the windscreen.

[vulgalour]

It is indeed, Mr May in vinyl graphic form. I got that from a forum I don't visit anymore as a one-off as the perfect decoration for that reshaped wing.

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Chompy and I spent some more time with the Princess today. A visit to Pirtek with some measurements got us a lovely new hydraulic repair section rated to deal with higher psi than the Princess suspension is under. It cost about £60, which wasn't too bad considering it's a fully custom piece.


We turned it around so the 45 degree bend is at the schrader valve end so that it fits. You can just about get the original air box on but I'll likely swap it to a smaller air filter of some description, the original is always awkward to deal with.


After that was fitted and tightened up we got the suspension reinflated again. It's likely the suspension will be lifted a little further than this just for the sake of clearance at the front, but we want it to settle out first to make sure it's where it needs to be.








We got the car running briefly after having issues with a battery that doesn't want to hold a full charge and the throttle cable sticking fully open. We used the Picasso to provide more boost to the battery, re-gapped the points, checked the condenser was installed correctly, found we had fuel getting to the carb and spark to the plugs. However, the car wouldn't run unless we put fuel directly in the carb so it looks like the carb needs cleaning out... again. Not too surprising, the car has been sat mostly idle for two years. Bit closer to an MoT at least.

[vulgalour]

Today, before work, I had some time to do a bit more on the Princess. Annoyingly, it had sunk a bit on the passenger side again, fortunately it turned out to be the displacer nut needing an extra quarter turn. We got it reinflated and had just enough fluid to do that, I'm going to have to get some more in just in case I need to fiddle about with the suspension some more, it could be that displacer union needs a bit of ptfe tape or similar to be fully fluid tight. The new repair doesn't leak at all.

I tried to fit the original air filter box and found it was about 1/8" too deep to go in past the new hydraulic pipe. I can cut the box down to make it fit, or I can get an aftermarket pancake filter to fit my SU carb, they were used on other British cars so there's some choice there and none of it is too expensive.

To get to the bottom of the fuelling issue, I had the carb apart today to see if anything was blocking it. Everything was spotless inside, nothing was stuck, so I put it all back together and plonked it back on the car. First of all I made a new heat shield out of some aluminium that was donated to the cause to replace the soggy, tattery fibre/asbestos original.




Yesterday, when we got the car briefly running, the throttle cable stopped working properly. I hesitate to say it snapped because it's still connected at both ends, but it now sticks and doesn't release properly. We reckon it's frayed inside the sheath. I've not had much luck finding replacement cables but had a look on eBay anyway and found there's a good half a dozen out there so ordered one from my favourite NOS supplier, Jolly Good Car Spares which should fit better than the Peugeot one we made fit a few years ago.

After reconnecting the battery and the carb another start was attempted and this time fuel was getting through to the engine and it started. Idle was incredibly rough and the car was behaving badly. After much running and fettling and checking we got the car to idle almost normally and then noticed the fuel filter isn't getting a lot of fuel through and is very dirty so we suspect a mostly-blocked fuel filter was starving the engine. A squirt of propellant in the carb intake made the car idle properly and after a few more checks it looks like we've found our suspect. It's possible the mechanical pump isn't pumping enough but as unlikely as there not being enough fuel in the car to run as it has about three cans of fuel in the tank (about 18 litres). Fuel sender isn't currently connected so the gauge can't tell me what's in there.

I didn't get any further with the lights or anything else, I had to get to work, and I'm now on break to update here before going back to work again. Now that it starts and runs somewhat reliably (if badly) it's easier to focus on the niggles and eliminate them. Have a video for your trouble (click on the picture).

[vulgalour]

Another little bit of time spent on the Princess today. First job was acquiring a fistful of bulbs and a couple of fuel filters. The rear end now has the full compliment of bulbs with the exception of the fog lights which I didn't have time to fit today. When I took the old fuel filter off the flow through it was quite poor and it was quite dirty, fitting the new one absolutely transformed how the car ran.


The car is now back to idling normally and even ran off the choke. The timing still needs fiddling a little bit to be perfect, or at least as good as it used to be, but it's much closer now. I've ordered throttle cable which should be here by Monday next week which will then allow me to drive the car and the suspension didn't sink overnight so I feel confident that the hydragas leak is cured.

Now I'm really down to niggles on the car. Our neighbouring mechanic had a look at the strange telescopic type play in the steering column. He suspects a worn bearing in the column so I can at least focus a bit better on where the problem might be now. I've got to resolve that for the MoT as it was one of the items it did fail on despite never having been advised previously nor having changed. The other item to attend to are the oil leaks. The first means an oil change, which is okay as it's ready for one, and is coming from this crusty looking blanking plate on the gearbox/sump side. I'm going to get all of this area cleaned up first to check it is this plate that's leaking and not something else making it look like it's this plate. I suspect it has a rubber bonded back that has failed, there's a similar blanking plate usually fitted where my mechanical pump lives.


Speaking of the mechanical fuel pump, that's leaking again. The leak is the bottom edge where the rubber spacer meets the engine which then fills up the little well underneath and oil soaks into the manifold creating a lot of unpleasant smoke.


To cure the known top end oil leaks - distributor O ring, rocker cover filler cap, fuel pump - I'm going to change the rocker cover. All the elements that are leaking go into the rocker cover and at the moment I'm using the early one from the spare head I had rather than the later one on my original head, this is mainly because I couldn't undo the bolts on the old head at the time so couldn't swap it over. Since everything that's leaking needs to be disturbed to swap the rocker cover it makes sense to do both at the same time and hopefully eliminate it all in one go.

I'm not fiddling about with the headlights until my new halogens arrive, there's no point making the connectors for the sealed beams work if I'm going to end up chopping them off for new connectors for the halogens. Since I'm not sure what wiring and plugs are in the halogen kit I've decided to hold fire. The clutch has shut up completely, and the flasher relay now works without clicking furiously. Horns are still deader than dead.

Overall, it's coming together nicely right now and I'm down to just having to do niggles and cosmetic work which makes me feel far more comfortable with the car as a whole. When the new throttle cable arrives life gets easier still as I can move the car about again and even get it transported home for the last few jobs if I want to. That said, I'm that close to MoT status I reckon I'm just going to book an MoT when I'm at the point I feel confident it stands a chance of passing and drive it home whatever the result.

[3xpendable]

Interesting updates Vulgalour. I've been off the grid for a while so I had plenty to catch up on.

That's a cool tool to lock the twin cams. Unfortunately it wouldn't work on the Santa Fe I did recently (V6) as the belts run 80% around the cams and down to the waterpump in between them. I then had the fun of the inlet cam pulley moving when I went to pull the belt over the tensioner. The only way around it in the end was to line the belt up a tooth out on the cam then it came into line when I pulled it over the tensioner. I don't plan on doing it again though!

[vulgalour]

That sounds like a rotten job!

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Another short amount of fettling. Getting some niggles out of the way and making things a bit more complete now. The new halogen lights arrived and I'm quite pleased with them. They're not a far cry from the sealed beams in the way they look and the domed lenses are glass rather than plastic. There is a slight modification required for the inner light plug only to make them work fully. We at least got the outer lights working as they ought and narrowed the headlight issue down to the passenger side connectors to the bulbs themselves.


The passenger side door handles and interior trim was reinstated which tidies up a lot of the car interior and generally makes life easier.




Door handles look nice in original chrome so I'm not going to paint them.


You will have noticed another addition at the rear in that picture, that being the rear fog lights are now attached. They take a specific bulb type which I didn't have in stock and now just need wiring up. One almost touches the exhaust tail pipe which would be a problem if I weren't planning to change the tailpipe anyway so I don't need to worry about that.


In the boot, the wiring is tidying up nicely. Chompy has removed all the old chock blocks and twisted wires and bodge, replacing it with proper connectors that just need a bit of heat applying to the heatshrink to effect a fully tidy repair. The loom will be re-wrapped to make it even tidier and afterwards I'll be boarding out the boot to hide all the work.






Haven't done any of the other things, it got very cold and my back got very sore so I decided to be sensible and call it quits on the car for today.

[vulgalour]

We got to the bottom of the headlight issue which turned out to be corroded connections. The headlight wiring for the sealed beams needs the inner bowl plugs changing for the new halogens as they're a slightly different fitting. However, things do work fine so that's a step in the right direction. The really nice thing about these halogens is that it's not that obvious they're a replacement for the sealed beams thanks to the domed glass lenses and they sit further back so if I do want to do a hideaway or tube grille at any point it will be a lot easier to install.


At the back we got the full complement of bulbs in. Just the fog lights and number plate to wire up now. The connection on the outer brake light on the passenger side is still a bit iffy, we're not sure if it's corrosion, a slightly deformed connector or a bit of both so fettling continues on that one. Just running lights on here, all four of them. The four brake lights are in the upper halves of the clusters.


Today my new air filter arrived. I had to get something smaller that was a direct fit for the HIF44 SU carb. Luckily, this is the same carb as used on Minis so there was some choice out there. For £20 I got myself a K&N-alike which fits by unbolting the old bracket from the carb and bolting the new back plate on through two different holes. Very easy swap and makes quite a nice engine note. It's likely I'll need a different needle for this carb too, it can likely be tuned on the standard set up to run well enough, if a little rich, I've got a friend on the case with the needle as he knows his way around SUs quite well.


Sounds pretty fruity on that carb, in a good way, and more importantly it clears the hydragas pipe repair. I imagine there will be a small loss in fuel economy and perhaps a tiny increase in performance. Happily the car now starts easily and comes off choke fairly rapidly just like it used to in regular use. I'm waiting on my hydragas fluid arriving and the throttle cable turning up so that the car is a bit more mobile. I took a short video of the car running today and would like to upload it, unfortunately the format my phone records in isn't recognised so I may use my camera instead when I'm next at the car.