Jump to content

The Epic Austrian owned R16 from Germany doing French things in a Parallel Universe near England Saga


Junkman

Recommended Posts

  • 2 weeks later...

When I came home from my tedious job in fucking Germany this weekend, some parcels had arrived.

They contained some wiring from that China, and some bulbs.

 

40567903055_74e30e9636_b.jpg

 

 

The bulbs are rather insane:

 

41418195382_91cc72611d_b.jpg

 

Don't let that H4 bollox mislead you, they are proudly in P45T format, but with H4 technology.

Let me explain.

P45T, aka Bilux, was the shortest lived headlight bulb format in automotive history and only used from the 1960s

until they realised how shit it was and brought in real H4 (P43T) in the 1970s.

So it's pretty needless to say that my R16 headlights are designed for P45T.

 

H4 was good enough until they replaced it with that newfangled post 1986 dazzling shit that unfortunately is commonplace today.

There is* a conspiracy theory that this useless rubbish was pushed into legislation by the Global Association of Opticians.

Be it as it may, Bilux was shit, so they came up with Halogen replacements. And the most powerful incarnation of those is what I bought.

In order for them to not set my headlight switch on fire, they should be operated via proper headlight relays and that's where the

Chinese wiring loom comes in.

 

The objective was to add this Chinese wiring to the existing French wiring to improve things.

Well, that went well, as I will reveal in this rather typical GGG antics post.

 

So said wiring loom was neatly installed:

 

26589487207_66c505e198_b.jpg

 

26589486197_d07d5c66db_b.jpg

 

The result:

 

1. Sidelights worked (anyway), dipped beam worked, but no main beam.

    After a lot of head scratchage, we found out, that when they went from P45T to P43T, they didn't change the plugs,

    but they swapped the earth wire with the mainbeam wire in the process. Why did they fucking do this?

    Well, just to annoy me. I have shat on automotive engineers since 1986 and I will enthusiastically continue.

    But from now on, I will piss on them in addition. What a bunch of useless retards that should be eradicated from

    this planet preferrably before Brexit. Anyway, after swapping earth and main beam wires due to those idiots,

    we could switch on - in sequence - sidelights, dipped beam, main beam. So far, so good.

 

2. When then switching from main beam to dipped beam, the headlights didn't switch to dipped beam. They proudly remained
    on high beam, unless you turned the headlights off, switched them on again, switched to high beam, switched back to dipped

    beam, but they remained on high beam.

 

3. A lot of investigation ensued. The conclusion was that one of the new Chinese relays wasn't doing what it is supposed to do.

    For a long while, I blatantly refused to believe that. We then snatched a relay from my trusty Pooshow 405 - and it worked.

    So the fucking Chinese had sent me a borked relay.

    Far from being racist, I thus shit on them in the same way I do on automotive engineers.

 

4. A hunt for a suitable replacement relay all over town ensued, not an easy task on a Saturday afternoon.

    We finally found it - are you ready for this? - at Halfords, of all things rotten!

 

So after this had been accomplished, we were rewarded with this:

 

Sidelights

 

41418192152_b516d6ffc5_b.jpg

 

Dipped beam

 

26589483887_3e8cc6548e_b.jpg

 

Main beam:

 

41418190752_875353d8c5_b.jpg

 

 

In further news, there has been a receivage of an indicator/sidelight lens courtesy of Frogchod:

 

26589489137_37bddfba0f_z.jpg

 

 

I cannot possibly clad in appropriate lyrics how grateful I am for this. It enabled me to replace my broken unit:

 

41418193912_81fe32610b_z.jpg

 

 

 

So after a day of the usual headless chicken style GGG tinkering with chod, a full house of headlightage was had

and it was tested on an extended trip through the Peak District by night.

 

What can I say?

The car is transformed!

I can now drive by night and actually see what's going on ahead.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Brilliant. After many years of warming my hands on the 2CV's headlamp switch, I finally fitted relays. Then one broke on a long journey, leaving me with no main beam. Thus, I had created a problem by trying to get rid of a problem. Sigh.

 

That's still a lot better than my usual habit of solving minor problems by turning them into major disasters.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

You need a pair of yellow driving glasses, seriously.

They don't make the night yellow, in fact, they don't alter colours at all.

But you can look straight into oncoming traffic without being dazzled.

 

I remember my Grandfather having a pair of these. They were almost certainly pre-war with a yellow lens and a crescent of gold round the edge of the lens. The theory was that if the light dazzled too much, you could turn your head and hide the bright light in the gold crescent plated on the inside of the lens. IIRC, they were made by Zeiss and very good quality.

 

He did quite a lot of driving (in Africa) at the time and the roads were often arrow-straight for miles and miles - and two strips of tarmac. He chose American cars for their ability to cover huge distances with comfort, speed and reliability. Before the war he used a Cadillac, then shortly after the war when he was able to get enough dollars together he bought a Buick Roadmaster. He had ordered a Cadillac just before war was declared, but that was overtaken by events and he could not get it. He had to wait to '48 for the Buick. He loved that car and kept it for about 20 years.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Entirely btw, of course one of the sidelights decided to do the Lucas. And also of course it's the one in the lamp I changed the lens of.

Do not disturb light fixtures that were in place for half a century, ever!

It took me two hours of intensive cleaning and sandpapering until that bugger finally decided to retwinkle at the speed of dark.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Isn't today drive it day?

Well, contrary to most people, who park up all day on some meadow, I drive on drive it day.

 

I drove to a very high up spot.

 

26756924197_1c11e0bc31_b.jpg

 

39817538550_d9c4016535_b.jpg

 

26756920877_73fe5f9306_b.jpg

 

 

I drove past a posh gate.

 

39817535920_5ff472acab_b.jpg

 

 

And a less posh one.

 

39817534460_c12e315e56_b.jpg

 

 

There was a bridge in Autoshite colours.

 

39817532830_441b8301b4_b.jpg

 

 

There were hills.

 

39817531510_f315ea4d03_b.jpg

 

39817530360_26d6efc7e9_b.jpg

 

27756369588_316eccb1ed_b.jpg

 

 

Sign said unsuitable for motor vehicles. But not unsuitable for R16s.

 

39817528730_e9c141f280_b.jpg

 

39817527430_bdaa70112d_b.jpg

 

39817526390_b92f11b4a2_b.jpg

 

 

In typical drive it day fashion, nothing else was driven.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

This morning there was a slight problem.

 

After having been parked for over a week, it didn't want to start when I wanted to drive it to work.

When I removed the air filter lid to give it a squirt of pez down the carby to wake it up, I noticed that one of the four bolts

bolting the air filter housing to the carby was missing!

A quick peep down the venturis revealed that it was stuck in one of them. Lucky, lucky, lucky!

In order to get it out, I had to remove said carby and I can say, that removing, bolt extraction and reinstalling can be done

in less than ten minutes even when doing it for the first time.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I know it's a long shot, but does any of you have, or know someone who has, a tank sending unit for these?

The tank has been replaced with the later type, i.e. it does have the unit with the tap ring, not the one held in with three screws.

 

Presumably all flat tank Renault units can be made to work, so 5, 6, 15, 17, 18 should all be suitable.

 

Note:

 

Links to sellers who offer the unit for 90€ need not be posted. I'd only make absolutely sure they remain exactly where they are now.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Create an account or sign in to comment

You need to be a member in order to leave a comment

Create an account

Sign up for a new account in our community. It's easy!

Register a new account

Sign in

Already have an account? Sign in here.

Sign In Now
×
×
  • Create New...