Ownership Verified: We can rebuild it... we have the technology (7 - take two)
- Thread starter MXM
- Start date
The coil I bolted to the front of the pedalbox:
And this is what the pedalbox looks like with the cover off:
Throttle cable isn't connected on that pic. But it is on the following, you can also see how I have 2 holes for the brake pedal mount, adjustability!
And in fact, the throttle pedal has 2 positions as well (view from the top here):
The other end of the cable goes under the carbs and connects to the butterfly valve lever:
This spring is the only spring returning the pedal, and at first it wouldn't return it, too much resistance in the cable. I've put a few drops of oil into the cable and worked it a bit, that solved it. Pedal moves very nicely. On the throttle pedal pic you can see a little tube going towards the cabin (straight up in the picture), that is a pedal stop, I can adjust how far the pedal can return, so it doesn't flap in there. But what I don't have yet is the stop for the other end, something stop me from pressing it too far and bending something in the carbs. I'm working on that
And this is what the pedalbox looks like with the cover off:
Throttle cable isn't connected on that pic. But it is on the following, you can also see how I have 2 holes for the brake pedal mount, adjustability!
And in fact, the throttle pedal has 2 positions as well (view from the top here):
The other end of the cable goes under the carbs and connects to the butterfly valve lever:
This spring is the only spring returning the pedal, and at first it wouldn't return it, too much resistance in the cable. I've put a few drops of oil into the cable and worked it a bit, that solved it. Pedal moves very nicely. On the throttle pedal pic you can see a little tube going towards the cabin (straight up in the picture), that is a pedal stop, I can adjust how far the pedal can return, so it doesn't flap in there. But what I don't have yet is the stop for the other end, something stop me from pressing it too far and bending something in the carbs. I'm working on that
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Just bolted on the headlights here, clear view of the engine:
Obviously the exhaust is missing, also notice the lack of any exit holes on the sideskin. Oh, how much pain in the ass that was! I'll come to it soon, trying to present stuff in chronological order here.
An interesting point of view:
And the next is the view of the scuttle panel. The black vertical plate is normally riveted to it. Which means that to remove the scuttle panel one has to undo everything that might be bolted to the vertical plate, and also any cables that may go through it (like the speedo). So I specifically asked to leave it unattached, so I would have a way to remove the scuttle and leave the vertical plate in place. Instead I used my beloved rivnuts to attach the two with 22 shiny little flathead bolts Quite fast to remove with an electrical screwdriver now.
Then all the instruments were installed, woo hoo!
I did it so I could finish the wiring on the car, and man, that was a project. Deserves a separate post with lots of pics.
Obviously the exhaust is missing, also notice the lack of any exit holes on the sideskin. Oh, how much pain in the ass that was! I'll come to it soon, trying to present stuff in chronological order here.
An interesting point of view:
And the next is the view of the scuttle panel. The black vertical plate is normally riveted to it. Which means that to remove the scuttle panel one has to undo everything that might be bolted to the vertical plate, and also any cables that may go through it (like the speedo). So I specifically asked to leave it unattached, so I would have a way to remove the scuttle and leave the vertical plate in place. Instead I used my beloved rivnuts to attach the two with 22 shiny little flathead bolts
Quite fast to remove with an electrical screwdriver now.
Then all the instruments were installed, woo hoo!
I did it so I could finish the wiring on the car, and man, that was a project. Deserves a separate post with lots of pics.
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- Joined
- Jul 15, 2007
- Messages
- 5,846
- Location
- Maribor, Slovenia, Europe
- Car(s)
- '89 BMW E30 325iT, '95 BMW E36 318ti compact
D
D-Fence
Guest
Where is the 7-up bottle?
You just needed an excuse to make a pic like that.
Yes
Where is the 7-up bottle?
Trash.
tonit
New Member
Did you crash it in Sotunki?
And nice work with the car!
And nice work with the car!
Somewhere around there, but maybe on the Sipoo side.
So this is the wiring post.
When I removed the original wiring, I couldn't make sense of it. It was a mess, and being somewhat OCD about these things, I needed to organize it. And hey - it's a basically a kitcar, how hard can it be?
The wiring was actually not that old, but it was already modified somewhat, and clearly belonged to a much newer car, as it had a lot of extra connections (like fog lights, electronic ignition, etc). But it lacked some of the wires for the functions I was planning. First thing I did, I mapped the whole thing. It was winter and I was very bored.
It must've taken me days... What I discovered, was that a lot of functions are wired directly and without relays or even unfused. The only relays there were actually for horn, indicator blinker, indicator relay and lights relay. For example the fuel pump was straight from the ignition, and caused some corrosion on the connector already (lots of amps there). So I added relays for the fuel pump, for the radiator fan and for any accessories I may later add (intercom, phone charger, navigator charger, like that). And fuses for everything.
What helped a lot, was that British wiring is standardized, everything is colour coded. Not that colours made a lot sense (brown for positive! argh). Then there were tricks with instruments, some of which need their own voltage stabilizer. Wiring for the lights was strange. Left and right side were wired separately - which is understandable (better to have one side to fail and whole front or rear), but the wires went from the dash to the front light, then BACK the same route all the way to the rear. Even if the goal is to avoid splits in the middle of the harness, it's a much shorter route to separate them under the dash rather than put the front and the rear in series. Which is what I did.
But anyway, next I made a new plan, with functions separated in blocks.
I had a few unused switches on the dash, I used one of them for manual override of the cooling fan and another one to switch accessories on and off. Also the oil temp and pressure I mentioned earlier. I also added some wiring for the inertia switch. It's a mechanical switch which breaks the connection to the fuel pump if it experiences significant vertical g, if the car rolls, for example. I'll be putting it under the dash, so it can be reached and re-armed manually if I drive over a particularly large pothole and need to restart the engine, for example.
With plan completed I could start doing the actual wiring. That was spring by now. My living room looked like this for a month or so
I removed a ton of wires in the end, the new wiring is much simpler, more logical, and most importantly - I know where all the shit goes
Test fitting to cut under-dash portion to length:
Fitting to the car
Then there was a problem of relays and fuses - where to put them? In original wiring they use these 4-way interlocking relay sockets, which were bolted directly to the vertical plate ("firewall"). I couldn't find a single supplier of these sockets anymore, so I decided to go with completely different set, and got a bunch of these from VWC. There's a relay and 3 fuses in one, and they interlock. I managed to fit everything into 7 units.
when mounting it all to the vertical plate, I wanted to have relays and fuses facing the interior, for easy accessibility. So my patented solution was to make a shelf from a metal plate which I bolted to the vertical wall. The sockets sit on this shelf, and behind them is a few cm of room for the wires. Like this:
It's a view from the passenger lap, more or less.
And this is the view from the other side (vertical wall removed for now):
Worked perfectly
And now everything wrapped with some loom-tape (no-glue sticky PVC tape - excellent stuff for wiring).
Another curious observation, look at the dash photo in one previous post, all the switches are in off position, but they are switched up! One of those little differences between UK and the world Apparently light switches in apartments follow the same rule, in UK up=off, down=on, and the opposite everywhere else. I couldn't reverse them here, some of the switches aren't toggles (like the washer), and I didn't want to have the icons upside down. But the long-handle toggle switches on the right side of the steering wheel (high beam switcher and flasher) I did reverse, switching them down to turn on just doesn't feel right.
When I removed the original wiring, I couldn't make sense of it. It was a mess, and being somewhat OCD about these things, I needed to organize it. And hey - it's a basically a kitcar, how hard can it be?
The wiring was actually not that old, but it was already modified somewhat, and clearly belonged to a much newer car, as it had a lot of extra connections (like fog lights, electronic ignition, etc). But it lacked some of the wires for the functions I was planning. First thing I did, I mapped the whole thing. It was winter and I was very bored.
It must've taken me days... What I discovered, was that a lot of functions are wired directly and without relays or even unfused. The only relays there were actually for horn, indicator blinker, indicator relay and lights relay. For example the fuel pump was straight from the ignition, and caused some corrosion on the connector already (lots of amps there). So I added relays for the fuel pump, for the radiator fan and for any accessories I may later add (intercom, phone charger, navigator charger, like that). And fuses for everything.
What helped a lot, was that British wiring is standardized, everything is colour coded. Not that colours made a lot sense (brown for positive! argh). Then there were tricks with instruments, some of which need their own voltage stabilizer. Wiring for the lights was strange. Left and right side were wired separately - which is understandable (better to have one side to fail and whole front or rear), but the wires went from the dash to the front light, then BACK the same route all the way to the rear. Even if the goal is to avoid splits in the middle of the harness, it's a much shorter route to separate them under the dash rather than put the front and the rear in series. Which is what I did.
But anyway, next I made a new plan, with functions separated in blocks.
I had a few unused switches on the dash, I used one of them for manual override of the cooling fan and another one to switch accessories on and off. Also the oil temp and pressure I mentioned earlier. I also added some wiring for the inertia switch. It's a mechanical switch which breaks the connection to the fuel pump if it experiences significant vertical g, if the car rolls, for example. I'll be putting it under the dash, so it can be reached and re-armed manually if I drive over a particularly large pothole and need to restart the engine, for example.
With plan completed I could start doing the actual wiring. That was spring by now. My living room looked like this for a month or so
I removed a ton of wires in the end, the new wiring is much simpler, more logical, and most importantly - I know where all the shit goes
Test fitting to cut under-dash portion to length:
Fitting to the car
Then there was a problem of relays and fuses - where to put them? In original wiring they use these 4-way interlocking relay sockets, which were bolted directly to the vertical plate ("firewall"). I couldn't find a single supplier of these sockets anymore, so I decided to go with completely different set, and got a bunch of these from VWC. There's a relay and 3 fuses in one, and they interlock. I managed to fit everything into 7 units.
when mounting it all to the vertical plate, I wanted to have relays and fuses facing the interior, for easy accessibility. So my patented solution was to make a shelf from a metal plate which I bolted to the vertical wall. The sockets sit on this shelf, and behind them is a few cm of room for the wires. Like this:
It's a view from the passenger lap, more or less.
And this is the view from the other side (vertical wall removed for now):
Worked perfectly
And now everything wrapped with some loom-tape (no-glue sticky PVC tape - excellent stuff for wiring).
Another curious observation, look at the dash photo in one previous post, all the switches are in off position, but they are switched up! One of those little differences between UK and the world
Apparently light switches in apartments follow the same rule, in UK up=off, down=on, and the opposite everywhere else. I couldn't reverse them here, some of the switches aren't toggles (like the washer), and I didn't want to have the icons upside down. But the long-handle toggle switches on the right side of the steering wheel (high beam switcher and flasher) I did reverse, switching them down to turn on just doesn't feel right.
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Hbriz
Ballroom Blitz
Same here, up=off down=on. It's the right way, you know it makes sense
I don't get what you mean, where's the conflict in logic? It's this kind of switch:
Same here, up=off down=on. It's the right way, you know it makes sense
No, no it doesn't. Up is comparable to forward. I would never put forward-off and backward-on. Unless it's shifter in a rally car, maybe
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Evel
Well-Known Member
Excellent work on the car, keep it up!
ZeDestructor
Well-Known Member
- Joined
- Dec 13, 2008
- Messages
- 2,321
- Car(s)
- 1994 Toyota Tercel
Wow, just, WOW. Thats a LOT of wiring that goes in a relatively simple car. I'd hate to think what something like a modern S-Class looks like beneath all of the stuff.
Another curious observation, look at the dash photo in one previous post, all the switches are in off position, but they are switched up! One of those little differences between UK and the world
Same here, up=off down=on. It's the right way, you know it makes sense
In cars the important thing is consistency. As for houses, back home the switches were a MESS. some were one way, others the other way. weird, but nothing we did could fix some of then (dual-gang switches flipping in opposite :S)
Topgearfanatic
is a Queen
All sequential gearboxes are like that, so it's more comfortable to change gears with weight transfer; braking pulls your body forward and accelerating pulls your body backwards.I don't get what you mean, where's the conflict in logic? It's this kind of switch:
No, no it doesn't. Up is comparable to forward. I would never put forward-off and backward-on. Unless it's shifter in a rally car, maybe
DanRoM
Forum Addict
- Joined
- Feb 27, 2009
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- 10,132
- Location
- Ruhr Area, Germany
- Car(s)
- MX-5 ND, Tracer 900 GT & two bikes
http://pic.armedcats.net/d/da/danrom/2011/04/15/meanwhile-in-australia.jpgSame here, up=off down=on. It's the right way, you know it makes sense
MXM, it's awesome work to rebuild that car. Lots and lots of respect to you. And I hope you bring it to the Ringmeet so this time we can see an orange Lotus not crashing.
