Thursday, October 12, 2017

Electrickery

Over the last year, I have been beset by a variety of electrical gremlins. Having had the car running, I set about removing any extra wires from the loom - carefully labelling all of the earth wires beforehand. Some (many) months later when I got round to some more work, I connected the battery......and nothing! A frustrating few months ensued - I never seemed to find the time to have a good go at sorting it - not helped by a bathroom renovation at home! Finally I got to the point where the only solution seemed to be to sell it, or set fire to it...!!! Fortunately common sense ensued and I finally found the time for a systematic and thorough review of what the issue was. Eventually I traced it to nothing more complicated than a dodgy connection on one of the relays!!! Grrrr!!! So now on to something resembling progress! A quiet period at work has allowed me a run on the electrics. I purchased a load of waterproof connectors from ebay (where else!) and have spent a couple of weeks rewiring the dashboard. All the required lights work, although I had to ditch the Ford Fog light switch - I just couldn't make it work, even with a replacement switch! Instead I got a cheap aftermarket one from a local autofactors that includes a build in tell tale light. A bit of carbon vinyl for good measure and hey presto!!! Other progress amounts to buying and installing a new horn (loud!), recalibrating the fuel gauge by bending the float arm - it now reads 100% until the tank is about 2/3rds full, then rushes down to read zero when empty. Not ideal but far simpler than the electronic correction boxes you can buy! I also removed a hefty chunk from the engine loom be shortening the loom to the fuel injectors - more waterproof connectors used!!

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