Dashboard and electrical - testing

I put the ignition barrel back in. Click the U clip down using a thin screw driver.

Push this clip DOWN until it clicks

If the key is in the same position as it was when it came out it should click back in place. If it does not go in it could either be that the U shaped clip has not been pushed down fully or the key has moved a little in the barrel. The first issue needs the U clip pushing down until it clicks (Tip: use your phone camera to see this). If the clip is fully down then it could be that the key has moved. The key can be moved carefully anti clockwise (when viewed from the back) to the stop or clockwise, but whatever you do don't let the pin go as far as the hole at the end (look at the side opposite the key to see this)! The barrel should go fully home and click in to place.

At this stage the fuel pump was not connected to avoid any risk of starting up the engine by mistake. Not all the electrics can be tested yet e.g. engine related items cannot.

The results of the first test were:

Working okay

Heater blower - off, speed 1, speed 2

Hazard warning lights - all four indicators flash (should lights on wings flash too?)

Hazard warning dash light

Indicator warning lights - when hazards flash

Brake lights

Horn - initially sucked instead of blowing and produced a weasy noise. Swapped the wires around and oh boy what a noise!

Wipers - parking correct way, intermittent, speed 1, speed 2

Washers - water jet plus single wipe and park. Adjusted the aim of the jets

Rear reversing light - ignition key needs to be in fully turned position and reverse gear selected

Rear fog light - main lights need to be on - faulty switch, so this needs replacing (worked if jiggled), also I had connected the red/yellow wire by mistake (this is the reversing light wire)

Fog warning light on dash - but see above

Lights - side lights, dip, main beam

Number plate light - on with lights

Auxiliary output - on with ignition switch

Instruments (just the back lighting) - oil pressure, water temp, speedometer

Battery light - no alternator working

Brake fluid low warning - no fluid in reservoir

Not working

Instruments (just the back lighting) - fuel, voltmeter, tachometer

Lights - flash and door courtesy lights

Indicators - front, rear, side repeaters - off side front and rear work when the ignition is on, no matter what position the indicator stalk is in!

Checked the connections to the left column switch (indicators) and they are correct. Traced the wiring for the indicators in the loom and that looks okay too. The wiring to the instruments looks correct as well. So I am flummoxed.

Mark Turnbull suggested that I test the switch as this seems to be a likely cause. If this doesn't work, then it is time to call in the experts!

NOTE: The earth connections to the instruments etc have been the main problem, so pay particular attention to these.

IVA application

Spent the afternoon completing the IVA (Individual Vehicle Approval) documents - amateur build declaration, application form, copy of major item invoices (chassis, body, engine, gearbox, instruments, tyres) and photos proving that I built it!

Submitted it on-line, attaching the forms and proofs.

So I am committed now to get it ready for the test by Valentine's Day. Fingers etc. crossed.

The car will go to GD for a once over, before being presented for the test in Nottingham. Paul Bowden will collect the car and transport to and from GD - saves me hiring a trailer, petrol and wear 'n tear.

Electrical connections

Loom changes

Horn

These should ideally have been made before the loom was put in to the body, as it would have been much easier. On the column wiper and horn switch, there are a couple of changes to make.

First the horn relay (the third in) needs the purple loop removing.

Loop to remove can be seen here if you look carefully!

Loop removed

Earth added (see arrow)

Washer

The washer needs the green (or light green in my case) removing and replacing with an earth.

Earth wire (black) replaced green wire

Intermittent wiper

Then its the intermittent wiper. This needs more wires changing and a relay adding (VW 3BO955531 or 357955531). This has been ordered. It was easy enough to wire, although I did not have the correct colour wires, so used the correct gauge wire that I had and marked it up with the correct colour and the relay terminal. Refer to the GD diagram for wiring.

Changes made to wiring on column switch

Other connections

Now the bits that I hadn't done earlier!

The brake fluid warning wires on the loom had not been fed through the bulkhead or connected, so that was done.

brake fluid warning wires finally connected

Then it was pushing the fuel pump wire through the grommet at the top of the passenger foot well. Some Vaseline helped here. A new terminal has been ordered.

So hopefully that is the end of the wiring, assuming it all works! Now it is down to testing all the electrics.

Passenger seat

This was really easy compared to the driver's side. Basically I used the same process as on the drivers side, but did not have to worry about the handbrake. The seat belts were also added. Another job done.

Foot well carpet and bits

Number plate lamp

Sorted the number plate light today. The bolt was not holding the chrome trim properly. I drilled out the supposedly threaded hole and fixed a rivnut. This sorted it out.

Rear number plate light fitting with rivnut

Fog light wiring

For some reason I had not connected the three wires to the loom. Straight forward.

Foot well carpet securing tags

These tags are to stop the carpet moving. This is especially important on the driver's side. The fittings are made up of a press stud for the floor and two rings for the carpet.

The three parts to each fitting

One of the rings had three prongs (upper), the other has holes for the prongs to go through (under carpet). First I fixed the press stud parts to the floor using self tappers. I made sure that the studs were under the carpet and not the rubber heel pad.

Press stud on floor

Chalk was applied to the top of the press studs and transferred to the back of the carpet. The ring with the holes was placed on the underside of the carpet, over the chalk mark of the press stud. The ring with the prongs on the top side was lined up with the holes and the three prongs pushed through the carpet. The prongs were then tapped over the lower ring, trapping the carpet.

Ring on underside of carpet

Top pronged ring can be seen here - rubbing the carpet makes the ring almost disappear

So the foot well carpets are now fixed down with the press studs.

Passenger foot well carpet fixed

Door card

I had never been happy with the passenger door card fitting. So I took the opportunity to refit it in the right location. It was only a few millimeters out, but I could see it.

Seat fixing - fitting to the car

Fixing the seats

This turned out to be a real pain and very time consuming - working out where to drill the holes to fix the runners. In the end I may end up changing the head restraints (which are currently mounted on the seat) to ones mounted on the roll over bars. Otherwise the head restraints touch the rear bodywork, the seat belts touch the head restraint and the head restraint restricts rearward seat movement - apart from that lot it is fine!

GD had supplied four fixing bolts, washers and spacers for each seat.  The long bolts and spacers go at the front of each seat. All the spacers were sprayed satin black to blend in (not that you can see them) and to reduce the risk of corrosion.

The carpets under the seats were turned back. Here I had to remove the seatbelt anchorages from the floor. A measurement from the rear bulkhead of 560 mm was used to locate the front fixing points on my seats, but check your own as Keith Akerman used 640 mm. The front hole nearest the transmission tunnel was about 75 mm from the tunnel side and about 90 mm away at the rear mounting point. A template of the bolt holes was used to determine the other location points.

Template taken from bottom of seat, marking the bolt holes

8 mm holes were drilled through the floor to take the fixing bolts. The holes I drilled in error (I had the runners in the wrong position), will act as drain holes!

The bolts were put loosely in the runners, before the seats were positioned in the car.

Bolts loosely fitted to runners

The seats were then trial fitted, before holes were cut in the carpet. Getting all four bolts through is not easy, so the rear holes were slightly larger.

The carpets were re-fitted with the seatbelt eye bolts. The holes in the floor were then marked with chalk and the carpet placed over them. The chalk was transferred on to the back of the carpet by pressing it with my fingers, before holes were cut in the carpet. Finally the seats were put in to the car and with the spacers at the front. The length of each bolt was noted, the seat removed and each bolt shortened to the appropriate length. The seats were fixed in place using the bolts, nylocs and penny washers from underneath the car.

Driver's seat fitted

Now just the passenger side to do.

Handbrake

Once the seat was in place, I could hardly get my fingers around the handbrake. I solved this by fitting a 3 mm spacer at the front handbrake mounting. Because the rear had no spacer, this caused the front of the handbrake to be move away from the car side and this created enough room to use it. Useful!!

Spacer between the handbrake and front mounting can be seen

The leather that covers the handbrake and the escutcheon were re-fitted.

Attaching the seat belts

I am fitting four point harnesses. I have had these in my Caterham and five point in my other two race cars. The five point were great in the race cars and stopped me submarining under heavy braking, but they could hurt the gentleman parts at times! So four point it was. You feel so secure with them on and they stop you moving about in the seat.

The harnesses are the clip in type in black to match the leather trim. It was simply a case of attaching them to the eye bolts on the fixings on the roll hoops and to the anchorages that I had located on the floor. The belts were then adjusted to suit me. At this point I took the opportunity to shorten one of the eye bolts so that it did not protrude from the fixing under the car.

4 point belts fixed

To keep the IVA inspector happy, I will edge the belt fixings with rubber trim to make sure that the curves are of sufficient radius.

Dashboard electrics connection

Connecting the looms

Spaghetti!

There are two main black connectors on the dash board loom which can only fit one way in to the other half of the connector on the main body loom. Then there re two white connector blocks which link the dash loom to the body loom. Finally there is a white connector which has four earth (black) wires, which is again connected to the body loom.

The five connectors

The column wiring 'sub looms' connect to the dashboard loom in to the designated connectors. Again they will only go in to one connector.

Column switch connections

The brake fluid warning wires (green and green/white) were fed through the bulkhead and connected to the brake fluid reservoir. Then the two wires that I had added for the auxiliary power socket were attached after small terminals had been attached.

Next the wires were attached to the ignition switch (see diagram from GD below).

Lower right diagram shows how to connect the ignition switch

Larger gauge wire crimp connectors (yellow) were needed for two of the wires. One of these needed a large 9.5 mm terminal too. See photo below.

Ignition switch connections

Once all the connections had been made, it was time to test if the electrical items worked. That will follow shortly.

NOTE ADDED LATER: Take note of the "GD427 Mk4 Vauxhall column connections" document notes. These changes should ideally be made before the loom is put in place! A lot easier. Will post wiring changes later.

Steering column - switches and wiring

This is the second part of my steering column switches and wiring post.

The switches were removed from the column mounting. The original stalks were cut off above the rubber gaitor locator towards the stalk end - see the photo below.

Cut stalk alongside an in-cut one

The end of the 'switch stalk' was then filed flat, drilled and tapped to take the replacement GD stainless stalks. The plastic flange that locates the rubber boot is at a slight angle, so the hole needed to be drilled to take account of this.

The plastic flange that the rubber boot is located on. Note that it is not 90 deg to the stalk

The new turned stalks were screwed in and a small amount of 'loctite' used to make sure they do not work loose. The column adjuster was fitted and a small grommet fitted to the leather to finish it off. This was glued to the leather to keep it in place.

New stalk fitted

The wires were connected to the column switches using the wiring diagram from GD. I will come on to the ignition switch later.

Wiring for column connectors

The wires have had female crimp connectors attached at the ends of the cut wires. Connectors are attached at the other end to link to the the dashboard loom using the block connector.

A switch with the wires connected

Don't push the switches fully home on the steering column at this stage, as they will need to be removed to install the dashboard.