Mk 1 Project Zippy. Looking Like a Car.

[MrBounce]

It is January, and as last year, the Manroom is a VERY cold place to be. As such I have decided to bring some of the work inside, and for now that meant wiring. This is very possibly my most hated thing with any car, as I don't really understand it well enough. Guess I will be learning...

I first of all cleaned up the rear loom as it had been inside a car which had been sat for 11 years. A wipe down with some white spirit made it much nicer to handle. The exposed end near the rear lights is not partcularly pretty, mainly due to the constant ingress of water. The connectors for the rear lights are poor (not usually a problem as they're easily replaced) but it's disconcerting when you try to pull them off and it brings half the (rusty) light fitting with it. There's also some butchering where the wires themselves have been cut a few inches before the connectors, then soldered back together badly and not insulated. I have no idea why this has been done, but in due course I will be replacing all the crimped connectors with proper soldered terminals and will re-solder and/or heatshrink the butchered bits. I will also remove the yellow tape and re-tape it.

Then there was the main loom to look at. This scared me a lot, so I took it round to see my good friend Mike. He is familiar with most aspects of car electrics and said he'd be happy to sort it out as I've been helping him with his Biota project. He spent the best part of two hours on his kitchen floor removing stuff that wasn't needed and identifying what wires did what. It is of course, second nature to him as he's been working with electrics since the age of 16, but to the untrained eye (like me!), the man is an utter genius. He has carefully unravelled things once I had discarded all the wrapping, old tape & plastic binding, then bunched all the wires together in the proper order with the minimum of electrical prior to further modification when in the car. I want to have the fusebox inside the car anyway, so this will happen in due course.

He also gave me distinct instructions to sort out yet more exposed soldering in the main loom. I have duly cut out said rubbish, resoldered and applied heatshrink. At least I did once I started using different solder to the cheap garbage that was in my new soldering kit... It seems the old stuff is definitely the best. And I didn't set the smoke alarms off, which pleased Mrs Bounce!

Rear loom, just after I cleaned all the old gunge off.



It holds such horrors as this...



..and this. Soldering iron's gonna get a lot of use.



The main loom. I kept pretending it wasn't there.



The Master at work.



All the junk taken out of the loom that wasn't needed. It's a lot.



Beautifully laid out and almost good to go. Modification, fusebox, new soldered terminals & wrapping to follow.



Butchered bits were re-soldered, and heatshrink applied.

[b1zbaz]

I need to go through my loom but have no clue where to start as I'm also useless with vehicle electrics I will do it one day

[goldeneye]

my loom was so bad that I made a brand new one myself, it took me a while but it was a very interesting job.

[Geoff Butcher]

Its amazing what horrors a loom can collect over the years. I once took forty feet of wire out of my TR4 and everything still worked...

[b1zbaz]

Now that's impressive

[MrBounce]

There's not too much of interest to report as I have been stuck inside due to the horrid weather or been waiting for parts etc. We have managed to put an accessory feed into the loom along with the appropriate wiring for a manual fan switch. No pictures yet - all is more likely to be revealed once it's all finished - wiring isn't the most exciting of things to photograph. I have also removed the (almost always corroded) bullet connectors for the headlight looms. I find these give unnecessary problems so I always solder these together and apply heatshrink accordingly. Finally I've removed the nasty corroded bullet connectors on the end of the rear loom and used heatshrink where they were inexplicably soldered. No new spade connectors yet because Mr Numpty here ordered the wrong ones...

I suddenly realised I hadn't done anything with the rear light lenses after the studs snapped other than clean them, so I pulled them out of the lights box and set about cleaning them up so the M4 set screws I'd got would sit flat. I used my old friend the Dremel for this and ground everything flat with the smallest die grinder I had. I then mixed up some epoxy resin (which stinks of course) and glued them in place. To make sure everything was in the right place I slid the light fittings over the studs and kept them off the lenses using a screwdriver, just in cas they bonded themselves together.

After a couple of hours they were solid enough so I put them back where they should be on the car to avoid damage whilst I throw stuff around the garage!

Rear Lenses dug out of the box



Old fittings ground flat



Light fitting added with screwdriver to make sure all was correctly placed & didn't stick...



..and the other side too.



Solid as a solid thing. I will leave it for several days to cure properly.

[Jon]

I gave my rear lights a bit of a refurb back in the autumn as the original gaskets were looking very scruffy. I had been putting off the job for years because I new that the studs would probably pull out, but in the end only one did. With new gaskets and half an hour's digital dexterity with a cloth and Autoglym metal polish they look a whole lot better.

As removed from the car:



Before and After:



Shiny:



Keep up the good work, Regards, Jon

[Geoff Butcher]

Hey, Bouncey, are those threads stainless or zinc plated ?

[MrBounce]

I believe they're stainless

[dusz]

I know this is a bit late, but the "cheap garbage" solder is most probably lead free and your old solder lead loaded. Don't breath in the fumes as they will contain lead. The lead tends to wet the joint better. Unfortunately, you are no longer allowed to buy lead solder it is all lead free in order to save the planet. Blame the EU Commission and the Restriction of Hazardous Substances (RoHS) Directive. Lead solder has not been allowed in electrical products for several years now.