Bobsticle

De Villes Advocaat

• May 3, 2015

• #21

Brought a tear to my eye did those photos.

Reminds me of home. Well its the place I spent every spare moment for the last four or five weeks weeks.

Like I say, everything is working now so I can pull it all to bits again now to remove the tub and replace the rear crossmember.

 

Blackburn

Well-Known Member

• May 3, 2015

• #22

They should be wired to the relevant indicator side as you have assumed.

 

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honolulujoe

Well-Known Member

• May 3, 2015

• #23

have to be tomorrow now, rain stopped play this morning and age of ultron stopped play this afternoon

 

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honolulujoe

Well-Known Member

• May 4, 2015

• #24

bit of unexpected good news, my fiddling has removed the battery drain, usually it drains in a couple of hours but I accidentally left it connected on Saturday and its still fully charged Monday morning.

indicator warning lights grounded to back of dash so now only 1 flashes depending on which way you are turning, much better than having both flashing imho.

Trouble is I have only one fuse left after my misguided attempts at wiring c2 on the flasher to ground. Am confident everything is wired in so I have ordered a nice new blade fuse box to replace the existing glass fuses one, i'm not a fan of the glass ones, and a nice new battery lead to get rid of the two joined together bodge by whoever did it.

Got an 8 way box to split some of the existing circuits up and give a couple of spares for adding a rear heater if the existing one proves not to be man enough for me being more of a softy as I get older.

 

Last edited: May 4, 2015

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honolulujoe

Well-Known Member

• May 7, 2015

• #25

still waiting for the new bits to arrive so I started fiddling with the Brixton Lamps on the front. They aren't wired to anything but are earthed to the chassis and there is a feed wire that doesn't go anywhere. Extended that lead and touched it to the battery positive and they lit up. Have experimented wiring them into the main beam wires :d

is one allowed to have them wired so or is it an mot or legislative no no?

 

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Events Planner

• May 7, 2015

• #26

not fancy getting the engine going first?

edit: oh maybe you have!

 

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honolulujoe

Well-Known Member

• May 7, 2015

• #27

engine is fine, its always worked, bit smokey but as its so old its lez exempt hopefully will still pass the emissions test

 

Castor

Trainee maniac

• May 7, 2015

• #28

honolulujoe said:

is one allowed to have them wired so or is it an mot or legislative no no?

Click to expand...

I'm unsure as to the technicalities of their position and where they are pointing, but please feed them via a relay and not through the headlamp wiring. The contacts in the switches are always marginal, and a few extra amperes can be all it takes.....

 

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honolulujoe

Well-Known Member

• May 7, 2015

• #29

np I shall give that a go

 

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honolulujoe

Well-Known Member

• May 10, 2015

• #30

RESULT

got the drivers side side light working, corroded earth connector in the holder, and the headlight works, dodgy connections where the feed splits for the two lights.

These old push in connectors they used for splitting the lead seem to fall apart when I pull wires out, guess as they are metal they won't last forever.

So the s3 is fully operational mechanically and electrically now, if the oldest passes his theory test beginning of june I shall stick it in for a pre mot see what happens.

not expecting it to pass but not expecting a huge list of fails either, although it has been sorned for a couple of years it only did a couple of hundred miles in its last year on the road.

 

Bobsticle

De Villes Advocaat

• May 10, 2015

• #31

Never liked the idea of a pre MOT. Gives too much time to find fault and you can always find something.

Id rather whack it straight in and stand over them a bit.

 

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honolulujoe

Well-Known Member

• May 10, 2015

• #32

I usually whack it in and run and hide

I probably will just take it for an mot just in case the guy is in a good mood and passes it or it fails on something small that I can fix within the 10 days or whatever it is

 

Bobsticle

De Villes Advocaat

• May 11, 2015

• #33

Two hundred weight of ripe horse ****e in the back usually gets em through in quick time......

Continually farting in reception can also help.

 

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honolulujoe

Well-Known Member

• May 13, 2015

• #34

well I won't try the farting if the receptionist is fit

new battery lead arrived so its on, looks like I was wrong about the old one, it isn't two joined together, it is one but a large section of the plastic insulation has melted and been covered with masking tape, cable is also quite frayed there. I guess it must have been touching the engine sometime.

Have to say I am not wholly enamoured by the way the cable has to route round the engine to get to the starter. Considering moving it to under the passenger seat. The 110 I had years ago had the battery there and it was quite a big one, but the box under the passenger seat in the s3 doesn't look as big, could be just my memory. anyway that is a job for much later.

Re-routed the ignition wires to come out the passenger side of the bulkhead as that is where the starter is. Also re-routed the washer bottle wire so it follows the wiper wires and also comes out the passenger side. Seemed silly to have all but one of the wires from one switch going one way and the last one going the other on a long and tortuous journey.

Will tidy the wiring with some conduit too.

New fuse boxes are here, made a positive bus for the ignition on items and will have one item on one fuse, makes it so much easier to understand than multiple wires on one terminal which is the current set up. Will make a bus for the other 3 prongs for items like the horn which I don't want only on when the ignition is on.

 

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Last edited: May 13, 2015

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honolulujoe

Well-Known Member

• May 13, 2015

• #35

this afternoon I have also been enjoying an object lesson in the benefits of remembering to disconnect the battery before pulling live cables round the engine

 

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Events Planner

• May 13, 2015

• #36

your bus the looped connectors?

i was trying to find a nice lil premade solid push in busbar for those boxes. atm, i've done the looped wires, but it's not ideal.

 

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honolulujoe

Well-Known Member

• May 13, 2015

• #37

yes that's it, its actually one bit of wire the black and green bit I just cut off the coating and bent the bare bit into the connector.

I did think of soldering a piece of wire along the terminals I wanted to connect but it would be a while before I remembered where I last had the iron and the solder.

I did see a preloaded box - think it was 12 fuses - with two separate positive buses built in but the fuses holes were ready labelled a lot of which wouldn't be what I had and it was fairly pricey so I didn't go for it. I shall just keep a key of what I have on each one.

Might change it later though for a mini blade box, both the chevy and the wifes runaround have mini blades, being an auto electrical nube I didn't realise they were mini till the new fuses and boxes arrived and were a good bit larger.

Might be useful to have all the cars the same size. Happy with the new stuff for now though

 

Bobsticle

De Villes Advocaat

• May 14, 2015

• #38

Looking good.

I think the battery cable was probably hanging near the oil filter at some time. I certainly could have chewed through one whilst trying to stop the filter housing leak.

I have decided to stop continually recharging the undersized and totally defunked battery and spend a few hard earned on another one. It might even push a few volts through these decrepid wires as far as the back bumper.