The Morbidmobile Blog

[Dippydog]

I'd assumed he was talking about the hole in the centre of the eyelet[with the wire attached to it] that's in the last photo-presumably it is a hole with the background showing through it?
By the way loving the socks

[Laird Scooby]

Originally Posted by Dippydog

I'd assumed he was talking about the hole in the centre of the eyelet[with the wire attached to it] that's in the last photo-presumably it is a hole with the background showing through it?
By the way loving the socks

That's between the stop/tail lamp and the indicator. There is a similar hole the other end but they are "factory" holes, i'm guessing when he says "hole" he means one that shouldn't be there - i can't see any of those.

Socks?

[Dippydog]

Ah yes,I see the hole at the other end now[having just looked back through the pictures]Socks comment wasn't aimed at you LS but rather for Tom-socks visible in his firstpicture of pcb on his knees

[Laird Scooby]

Originally Posted by Dippydog

Ah yes,I see the hole at the other end now[having just looked back through the pictures]Socks comment wasn't aimed at you LS but rather for Tom-socks visible in his firstpicture of pcb on his knees

Ah, yes, i see the socks now! Stripey-a-go-go!

[TomSaintJames]

Morning all, a man has to have some snazzy socks!

On a more morbid note, i've been thinking about these blasted lights for a while, and looking online, and I found a guy with a 240 that hard wired his bulb holders to remove a dodgy PCB.

So this is what I did last night!



I had to adjust the spade connectors I had as they were slightly too narrow, also I had to adjust/bend the metal tabs on the reverse and indicator holders as they will likely fould the tailgate body when mounted. I deceided on individual earth wires for each bulb only becasue I didn't have a way to connect them in series, which probably would have been tidier - but hopefully this way will also work.

What's the consesus chaps, a good plan? Hopefully someone more electrical-minded than I can have a quick glance at it to make sure i've not done anything wrong. I can get it on the car tomorrow and connect it up, will have fingers crossed!

[Stephen Edwin]

Originally Posted by TomSaintJames

Morning all, a man has to have some snazzy socks!

On a more morbid note, i've been thinking about these blasted lights for a while, and looking online, and I found a guy with a 240 that hard wired his bulb holders to remove a dodgy PCB.

So this is what I did last night!



I had to adjust the spade connectors I had as they were slightly too narrow, also I had to adjust/bend the metal tabs on the reverse and indicator holders as they will likely fould the tailgate body when mounted. I deceided on individual earth wires for each bulb only becasue I didn't have a way to connect them in series, which probably would have been tidier - but hopefully this way will also work.

What's the consesus chaps, a good plan? Hopefully someone more electrical-minded than I can have a quick glance at it to make sure i've not done anything wrong. I can get it on the car tomorrow and connect it up, will have fingers crossed!

At a quick glance you appear to be getting the lamp cluster adjusted to basics. Definitely a good plan. That must help. Cushti.


You are following the check absolute basics concept, a fundamental of good sense.



Which reminds me. There were some lights that operated only if the tailgate was up, or was it when the tailgate was down. It would be best if eventually that can be investigated. Mysteries have a habit of arising unexpectedly and causing problems. I learnt that in Epping Forest .....


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[Laird Scooby]

You may have to swap the yellow and white wires on the stop/tail lamp Tom but other than that it should work fine.

Give it a try and see what you've got!

[TomSaintJames]

Thanks chaps!

I hope I got the brake wiring correct, on the PCB the tail light and dim brake are in series on the same 'run' and there is a seperate run/feed for what I assume is the fuil brightness brake light.

So a bit more detail for what I did, as I said before the female spade conenctors I had were too narrow to fit the bayonets of the bubl holders, and with no easy way to trim the bayonets, I just rolled the spades apart a little with some needle nose pliers - quite a fiddly job!

Two stretched and an original.


I then attached all the spades to the wires, trying to keep matching colours for each feed wire. For the tail and dim brake wires, to keep them in series I used a female half of a bullet connector to join the two wires as they were too chunky to fit into a normal spade connector.



Then started the earths, I couldn't get a secure conenction with two wires forced into one spade connector, so decided in the absence of a 'piggyback' spade connector (as I believe they're called) I would just do seperate earth wires for each bulb - hopefully this will also give everything a really good earth to ensure bright, non fading lights!

[i

Tomorrow, I will connect the light cluster wires to the tailgate wiring with bullet connectors, only really as the tailgate cables already have the male half attached. I'll also tidy the wiring up, so there's no chance of anything fouling anything! I am fervently hoping that this sorts the problem of the drivers side rear lights, but do plan on doing the same with the passenger side - if anything to keep the 'light out' indicator happy (which of course it is very much not just now!).

My new white bulb holder says delivered, but I have no parcel or missed delivery card... The courior used was Yodel too, so very little chance of getting anything useful out of them, in the past they have been less than useless.

In other news, this cold weather proves that the AAV is working, but could do with a little more adjustment in the open direction i believe, the car will idle fine when cold but still occasionally stall when put into gear. Unless there could be another likely cause for this? I recall Dave mentioning that there may be other cold idle k-jetronic common problems.

Thanks all, until tomorrow.

[Laird Scooby]

Originally Posted by TomSaintJames

I hope I got the brake wiring correct, on the PCB the tail light and dim brake are in series on the same 'run' and there is a seperate run/feed for what I assume is the fuil brightness brake light.

"I hope I got the brake wiring correct, on the PCB the tail light and outer tail light are in parallel on the same 'run' and there is a seperate run/feed for what I assume is the brake light."

Tom - corrected for accuracy ^^^^^ - the earths are also in parallel too.

With your cold start, i'd check the rubber "sock" between the throttle body and the fuel distributor (that's right, your car has a fuel distributor as well as an ignition distributor) because any air leaks here will cause a weak idle, especially when cold.

It's possible that since you've cleaned the breathers out, it has previously been MoT'd with blocked breathers and the mixture adjusted to pass which means now they're clear, it's running a little too lean.

Until you get it in for MoT, give it a minute or two to warm up on cold days and then find out what the CO reading is when it's hot on the MoT. That will be a good clue.

By the way, if you'd bought yourself some 1/4" female connectors instead of 3/16", they would have gone straight on!

[TomSaintJames]

Originally Posted by Stephen Edwin

Which reminds me. There were some lights that operated only if the tailgate was up, or was it when the tailgate was down. It would be best if eventually that can be investigated. Mysteries have a habit of arising unexpectedly and causing problems. I learnt that in Epping Forest .....

It was the bumpers light Stephen that only worked with the bootlid open - this was solved by installing a new earth for them in the spare wheel well. Dare I ask about Epping forest...? I'm intrigued!

So I installed the nice new shiny light cluster today and wired it in, tidiedit up as much as I could - and IT ONLY BLOODY WORKS! Victory is mine! This battle has been won but the war still wages.

Shiny.




Earths connected.


The finished product!


It is now in the hands of the MOT man just round the corner, i've used him before as it's less than 10 mins walk from home, but forgot why i stopped using him - he's so grumpy! Almost rude. I did however walk past a garage i'd never used before or even noticed (it's a whole 30 secs closer to home too!), that have experritse in in older cars and motorhomes - very much wishing i'd used them now.

Thanks for the advice dave, i'll have a look at the rubber sock, it looks a bit lopsided and bulged from memory. I was relying on my assorted connector kit from screwfix for everything and didn't really want to go buying more stuiff at this point! We've been keeping score of what we've spent on this car so far, we're at 2/3 to 3/4 of it's purchase price before the MOT today...

So as a summary, all lights now work except the interior lights - but I haven't tried these with the bootlid open yet. Fingers crossed for the MOT as I want to use it later