Third and finally, some updates to the bobtail. For years now, I've had some occasional strangeness with starting. Sometimes it would seem like no power is getting to the motor. In the past it could've been bad batteries but it would sometimes struggle to turn the starter one moment and be perfectly fine the next. The escalated to me just getting a click when holding the key in the starter position and having to back off slightly for it to make contact and start.
This escalated further still when I wet-vacced the seats (picture at the end) and opened the front electric windows, when I went to close the windows the ignition switch fell apart and I really struggled to get a connection. Eventually I was able to close the windows but not start the engine. Time for a new ignition switch. When I got the replacement steering column it had come with another ignition switch, I didn't use it though because my existing one had some wires spliced into it. I knew from testing that the engine wouldn't start without those wires so they were important. I just used the existing ignition switch and didn't worry about it. Well, now was the time to worry about it.
The replacement switch arrived and I could test it out, as expected everything worked perfectly with the new switch, apart from starting. The old switch wiring had these two wires spliced in, one blue and one purple.
I quickly identified that there was no alarm or immobiliser fitted any more and that the connections must be to the fuel stop solenoid, there's literally nothing else stopping these simple old engines from running. There should be one white wire going to the solenoid but I a complete mix again. The black goes to the solenoid itself and I then have a blue and filthy purple.
Very confusing. So I chopped the wires inside and unplugged them at the solenoid, I then confirmed that the blue is the same wire. Nice, I can easily fix the power to the solenoid. I've now done this but I'm not showing it, all I will say is that it doesn't involve a wire spliced into the ignition line before the first plug. I had the idea to add a hidden kill switch too so I may have done that.
Effectively the problem is now fixed, but what about that purple wire? Well, the one at the solenoid and the one in the cab weren't the same wire! The one in the cab goes to this redundant connector that I've always wondered about but have never touched.
Looks like it did once have an alarm, some older aftermarket alarms are shown with this type of block connector. That probably explains why the stop solenoid isn't wired as it would be from the factory as it would be cut and controlled by the alarm for security porpoises. Along with the purple wire there are also yellow wires going to the back of the indicator switches, probably to make the indicators flash when the alarm is armed. I'll rip it all out one day.
Anyway, the purple wire from the stop solenoid goes to this thing.
It's another curiosity that I haven't dared touch in 5 years. There was no obvious way inside so I pulled on it and it was held together with hot glue. It's a relay, but I have no idea what for. If anyone can identify the make or model of this thing I would be interested as there are no markings.
There are 5 wires, one purple that picked up +12V from the stop solenoid feed, a blue that went nowhere and appeared to be a different blue to the feed to the solenoid, and red and black that went to the main battery and a single green that became red and went to the positive of the aux battery. Not sure if it's normally open or normally closed, not tried that yet. Something was definitely connecting the two batteries together with the ignition off, maybe it was this.
Well it isn't any more as I shorted it with snips as I tried to remove the glue and a trace blew off the circuit board. I'll soon know if the main battery now gets charged from the solar panel but the aux does not, in which case maybe I can get a better replacement and re-add it. There's a big voltage sensitive relay for sharing charge once the engine is running, the solar panel never gets the charge high enough for this to kick in.
Here's the bundle of surplus or old wiring I've removed. Both old ignition switches were junk to be honest, they're held together with crimp tabs and once they've come loose there's no way to crimp them back together.
Finally, yes I cleaned the seats while I was doing the ones in the Freelander, these came up really well despite the covers being a bit baggy from degradation of the foam inside. They're still more comfortable than any of the seats I had in Keely and... well... they're frigging blue! They make the rest of the interior look filthy now, which it is. I don't care for the most part but I might try and clean that cubby box because it's nasty.