35+400 = 435
Well, what have I been doing on the car of recent? Wiring, and a lot of it. It’s gone from completely insurmountable to feeling like I’m breaking the back of it and 90% there – however, it’s felt like it’s been 90% for some time now, feel like I actually could be…
Bits of note? Removing wire, lots of it, tracing back and tracking, relying on the wiring diagrams (which have been pretty damn accurate).
A few fun bits, getting the headlights working – a specific cause of pain was the main beam indicator light – the reason for the pain was the Venom headlights, and their solenoid that actuates the dipped/main beam – what it turns out is that switching a solenoid on and off causes a spike back of voltage – how do I know this? because it caused me to blow £10 worth of main beam LED indicator light – argh. With a lot of help from my pals Rob and Amit they pointed me to a “flyback” diode – quite a common solution apparently, and it’s done the job brilliantly.
Other fun? an ECU light, it turns out all UK cars didn’t have an ECU light on the dash – but I quite fancied one, however after a lot of research, it looks like I can take a feed from the diagnostic port on the car (not OBD II). Downside is that I have an ECU light that is permanently on unless I join some jumpers in the diag port – upside is I can disconnect it for most things, and run it depending on how I feel, not sure on it yet.
Final bit of oddity is the battery charge light – this would be really easy if I were using bulbs, bulbs you see accept current in either direction – I’m using an LED for my dash lights – they accept current in only one direction. I toyed with the idea of using a bridge rectifier to allow the battery dead, alternator ok OR battery ok, alternator dead to trigger the light, but after much fiddling and testing I’ve decided to just emulate the MX5 usage, just feeds off the alternator. Another thing I learnt is about exciting current of alternators – as I remove the bulb (and resistor) from the mx5 cluster there is no device to draw some current while the alternator starts doing its thing. So I’ve got the LED, but also a resistor in there to for some current to kick the alternator off. I have to thank WSCC and Mark Wendon again for some thinking and nudging along the plan!
Another nice Segway was the flasher unit indicator mod, well documented out there (did I even mention it already!?) needed to up the resistor to ensure the system can use LED indicators.
Right now…
I’ve the speedo to fit – thinking is to attach the hall effect sensor to the diff arm and read off magnets I’ll stick to a driveshaft. So need to fit this (bracket is done already), line up the wiring.
Then need to route the wiring for the heated screen – when this is done I should be about done with adding and fiddling with wiring.
Dare I say pretty much everything else seems to work, gauges, lights, switches, warning lights and so on.
then need to bundle up the wires up, locate all the oddies like fuseboxes and indicator switchboxes etc. Then tidy the wiring up under the bonnet.
Getting there – must say I’ll be pleased to see the back of the wiring – especially as I’ve a rollbar sat in the spareroom I’d love to fit!
Laura helped lots by the way… she likes a call out…
some piccies…
