project 1980 Austin Princess

[MarvinsMom]

hmmm, assuming that the transverse o-series is a similar set up to the transverse A-series (it certainly looks the same) then you wont stop it leaking around the gear change rods!

 

on a mini, and another a-series car, then you can buy replacement oil seals which fit over the gear change rod and a replacement outer cover which has a rubber o-ring thing in it that can be tapped into the hole in the gearbox with a drift or old socket, that may stop or slow the leak from there for a while, but it will come back!

 

when getting the oil seal changed on a previous mini i found that there was a total of 5 oil seals around the gear change, and the flippin' thing still leaked!

[DodgeRover]

Almost there, hope you are feeling fully better now.

You know those rear fog lights do seem to be looking better to me....

Just a suggestion for the future but would some bullet type lights be any use there?

I'll post a link to what I mean although they may be a little small

 

Like these but choose some nice stainless ones?

http://m.ebay.co.uk/itm/Bullet-Light-Chrome-with-Stop-Tail-Bulb-Red-Lens-/111826154635

[vulgalour]

@MarvinsMom: Thank you! That's really useful information.  I had a similar comment on another forum too and your theory is how it works apparently.

 

@DodgeRover:  Now I've got the rear plate on I think going smaller on the foglights would upset the balance on the back end and make the plate look too large.  Everything just sort of works at the moment.  I was considering torpedo type lights initially but could only find rubbish ones, the ones you linked look nicer than the stuff I was finding.

[vulgalour]

Another day of Princess fettling, another update for you all.  Tyres were dropped off at the local place but won't be ready to collect until tomorrow, not really a problem as the car doesn't need to be back on its wheels yet.  I'm going to tick that one off the list for now as they'll be on the car tomorrow and sorted.  With the bootlid off again I found that the cause of the problem was one of the latch components was 180 degrees out and I know how it happened; the mechanism almost fell apart as I was fitting it, since it's a fiddly job, and I thought I'd put it back together properly.  Clearly not. I can sort that out easily enough now and I've freed the latch from the catch, it also explains why the lock wouldn't release the catch.  I stripped all the paint off the outside of the boot and found yet more excessive filler work to deal with some very minor dings.  I then put a good coat of primer and a quick top coat of relevant colours on just to keep it moisture proof.  I'll do more work on this before it goes on the car and tidy up the colour splits properly, this was a bit of a rush job.

 

 

 

Two little holes were drilled so that the washer pump could be attached securely to the bulkhead.  Nice and smart and no need to alter pipe or wiring lengths, I'm very happy with that.

 

Mike investigated the random relay and wires that had lived behind the battery since I bought the car.  One wire needed fixing but the rest is seemingly a relay for the electric fuel pump that used to be fitted.  It was tidied up properly, made safe and may be utilised if I switch back to an electric pump in the future.

 

Mike also completed the wiring for the fog lights.  We can't test them as we've still got that issue with the blowing fuse but from looking back through photographs and eliminating other wiring we know that they're connected to the correct wires.  We also know the fog lights work as they were bench tested before being fitted to the car.  Wiring route was a little tricky as the big square hole can't have the wires running through it, they have to go through the double skinned bit instead.  The wiring loom will likely be tidied away behind the custom trim panels I'll be making, if there's enough length and suitable gaps, it may also go through the double skinned section.  For now, it's not in the way.

 

The other job that was dealt with was reconnecting the fuel sender wires.  This didn't resolve the fuse blowing issue so we now know that the wires up here were not earthing/shorting on the bodywork.  It also highlighted that the other reason the car stopped running was I'd run out of fuel... which I've never actually done before!  Chucked a jerry can of fuel in because the needle only came up to just below the red on the gauge, it was that empty!

 

 

With the only wiring job at the back now being the high level brake light donated to the cause by Trigger, the boot mat could go back in.  Spare wheel is staying out for now until that light is wired in as Mike will probably have to sit in the boot to do it.  Usefully, not having the boot lid on makes Mike's life a lot easier for all this horrible wiring work that he seems quite content to beaver away at.

 

On pulling the plugs today I found they were all quite sooty, confirming my belief that the car is running rich since fitting the cone filter.  That wasn't much of a surprise, retuning the carb is on my list after all.  Speaking of the list...

 

MoT list update:

 

> make hazard switch work

> tune the carb

> identify insecure CV joint fail from previous MoT

> identify why fuse #5 is blowing

> connect fog lights - DONE

> connect number plate lights - DONE

> stick number plates on - DONE

> make the indicator lights work - DONE

> fit the new tyres - DONE

> fit a new washer jet pump - DONE

> find the loose steering component - DONE

 

 

Not much to go!  Saving as many pennies as I can now for insurance, tax and MoT expenses.  There may be some other minor items to attend to as we go through final checks that I don't know about yet but overall, it's look pretty good

[Pillock]

MUCH EXCITE.

Hopefully that list is as minor as it looks and you're on the road soon. I shall pray to the Gods of vehicle electrics for you.

[vulgalour]

Don't forget to leave your smoking offering at the altar of Lucas or if you prefer a plate of spaghetti at the altar of Magnetti Marelli.

[scaryoldcortina]

I've been thinking about that CV joint fail - it's pretty much impossible for the actual joint to be insecure without it causing massive clonking noises when moving the car around - I'm sure you would have noticed!

 

My guess is that it's meant to say CV joint gaiter insecure, which normally means that the clip holding it on has come loose or rotted away.

 

 

HTH

[vulgalour]

That would make more sense, I did have to replace the front gaiters because the old ones fell apart so I've probably already sorted that item out then.  There's absolutely no clonks when piloting it about, even when it was on the bump stops on one side.  Not a lot to do at any rate.

 

EDIT:  I tried to send you a message but I think your inbox is full.

[vulgalour]

You can tell how modern a car is by how many cup holders it has.  The Princess has three cup holding locations, it is therefore very modern.

 

 

Mike and I have been trying to get to the bottom of the problem of the weird electrical issue that has manifested.  It's probably the car demonstrating pre-MoT nerves.  Or a problem with the earth.  Anyway, we got the fog lights working today after I dismantled the dashboard and the switch bank and cleaned it all up.  Thing is, they only worked with the heated rear screen switch, not the fog light switch.  Thinking I'd just got the connectors muddled I swapped them around and now they don't work at all, the fog light switch won't even illuminate where before both HRS and fog switches illuminated as normal.  I do not understand this at all.

 

The high level brake light was installed too and tested.  It works very nicely.  Then the main brake lights wouldn't work.

 

Then only two brake lights wanted to work.

 

So we took the backs off the inner light clusters and all the brake lights work normally.  The indicators are working properly again too.  The hazards won't work because the relay appears to have died.  The only loose wire found anywhere was the earth wire that connects between the bulkhead and the back of the radio.  It's still blowing fuse #5.  The wiring seems to check out but clearly something, somewhere, is wrong.  I'm putting this down to it being sat doing very little for three years because the problem seems to be wandering around the car and affecting different items seemingly randomly.

 

I have had problems with the electrics on this car in the past, just never to this degree.  Fuse #5 blowing is a complete mystery, there appears to be no cause for it though obviously there must be.  The bulbs in the dashboard that aren't illuminating are perfectly fine, so it's odd that they won't light up.  The rear lights do and have all worked so it's odd that occasionally they don't and not always in the same way.  Normally you'd expect a loose connection or some corrosion to cause an issue like this but as far as we can find there's nothing of the sort and there aren't that many places to check as the wiring is, for a car, pretty simple.  I do know it's not because some things have been modified from standard as we have had everything working without a problem, there's even photographs to prove things are working as they should.  The fuse blowing has only started happening after this push to get the car MoT ready too, which is what makes that one extra odd.

 

I don't know, it's all very strange and mysterious because electrics.  Mike's determined to figure out what the problem is and I'm going to try again to learn how to interpret the arcane symbols known as wiring diagrams and how they translate what you see in the physical plane.

[scaryoldcortina]

EDIT:  I tried to send you a message but I think your inbox is full.

Yes it was. Have purged it of ancient messages about raffles now.

[Des]

On fibreglass wings, can they be mounted with the fancy bonding agents as used on some modern car panels? Might be more fun than the traditional means of window putty, pop rivets and woodscrews, then could the soft lines be sharpened up by a strategic placement of where the two colours meet?

That nuisance fuse, you've not been changing like for like something of too low an amperage have you?

[vulgalour]

The fuse is the correct size for the application.  It's been suggested elsewhere that there's something shorting to earth so we're going to go through the wiring from the nose to the tail and use a bulb in place of the fuse to check through everything.  There's probably a crimped wire somewhere or something like that.  I was considering bonding some washers into the fibreglass wings and converting to bolt-on panels, the colour split should help sharpen up the swage line visibly, that's the worst bit for looking soft on the ones I've seen.  Don't really fancy pop rivets, etc.

 

We'll get there.  Nearly done now.

[Noel Tidybeard]

i had aproblem with all the sidelights on my mini blowing the (hidden in-line)fuse all of a sudden, so left car with step-bro for the afternoon and he found one of the self tapper for the grille had cut into the wire that ran left/right behind grilleand was shorting to earth

guess who had put a larger screw into grille mounting hole to fix a non tightening screw

[vulgalour]

Today the gearbox selector rod seal kit arrived so I can hopefully resolve that issue.  Didn't fit it today as Mike and I have been trying to get to the bottom of this wiring problem.

 

After consulting the wiring diagram Mike tried to explain to me what was what and I understood a bit of it.  He could tell me what coloured wires to look for at least and we started the laborious process of going through the items that should be running from fuse #5.  We discovered that the first way around I put the foglight and HRS switch plugs was correct, so corrected that, tried the HRS switch and promptly blew its fuse.  That was new.

 

A check in the boot revealed that at some point one of the plugs for the HRS had been mistakenly plugged into the boot light switch.  This was corrected and a new lead run for the boot light switch, the original having vanished.  Not fantastically tidy at the moment, that can come later.  I'm also missing the switch bracket that operates it with the boot rams, this is because I switched to the earlier boot rams and didn't have a switch bracket to swap over.  Not a big problem, the switch is currently always off, so I shan't be draining the battery or anything like that.

 

We then started tracing the items for fuse #5.  It controls interior lights, door switches, cigar lighters, boot light and hazards.  These are all the things that aren't currently working, unsurprisingly.  One by one we disconnected items to try and find which one was blowing the fuse until everything was disconnected.  The fuse still blows.  The car is gradually being dismantled.  This is very annoying.

 

 

 

We could find no poor earths, no damaged wires, no incorrectly routed components and no signs of damage.  So far, I have a car in pieces blowing one fuse and no apparent reason for it.  We'll just have to dismantle things further until we uncover all of the wiring and eliminate items.  A little job I could do was refitting the wing mirror that was off the car.

 

The tyres had also been fitted so the wheels and trims could go back on the car too.

 

There's not really anything I can do to help now so Mike is going to plod away at this wiring to try and get to the bottom of the issue.  The next thing is to work through every connector and isolate every component until something is found that, when disconnected or moved, stops fuse #5 blowing.  We know it's going to be something simple and we know it's going to be difficult to find.  Earths, connectors, and all wiring is being examined thoroughly including original wiring, new repairs and new modifications for items such as the headlights.  It will take time.  Even if I have to take the whole wiring loom out of the car and rebuild it from scratch, we will get to the bottom of this bizarre problem.

 

Oh, and just to pre-empt the question, nothing was done to the car that triggered this.  The fuse started blowing of its own accord, not in conjunction with any work done to the car.  No other fault manifested to trigger this issue, it's something that has just started happening.  At this point I'm not seeking suggestions, we are just methodically working through the entirety of the electrical systems until the fault is found.  We'll get there.

 

[alf892]

have you had a good look at the courtesy light switches?

[vulgalour]

All the items that operate from fuse #5 have been checked and found to be as they should be, including the courtesy light switches.

[panhard65]

Years ago I had a Talbot Sunbeam that had some welding done then kepts blowing fuses. It took ages to find but the bloke who did the welding had used self tapers to hold the panel in place before welding it. He managed to screw one into the wiring loom. Pretty unlikely but it could be a longer screw put in or even a bit of mig wire could burn through. Wiring is a right sod of a job and very time consuming to find.

[vulgalour]

I wish it were something that simple, this one is proving more hard to find.  Been hoping for that eureka moment of finding a bolt bridging a switch or a big old nail sticking through the loom but no such luck.

[twosmoke300]

It will be something simple - you just haven't found it yet !

I'm pretty sure the canbus will be ok ! 😄

[Parky]

I think it will end up being a piece of bare insulation shorting against something, possibly caused when refitting the dash or similar. They tiniest little thing I bet

[Pillock]

Use a nail in place of the fuse and see which component catches fire.

[DodgeRover]

Thinking logically,

Have you tried pulling all the other fuses bar #5 to see if that stops it blowing?

Does #5 blow instantly on fitting or only when certain things on the circuit are turned on, or when anything on that circuit is turned on?

 

No disassemble Jonny 5, #5 is alive!

[Noel Tidybeard]

the only thing you didn't say you had disconnected is the boot light- looking at the picture the switch is in the light ON position surely, so if the light is the problem you gonna keep blowing that fuse

[vulgalour]

DodgeRover: Not tried blowing other fuses to see what happens.  #5 blows as soon as the battery is connected, even with all the items it should power disconnected from it.

 

Frank:  You're right!  I got confused there didn't I?  The boot lamp hasn't been refitted so the switch has nothing to switch on or off.  I expect that means the switch behaves as though it is effectively off?  Certainly there wasn't any difference when the lamp unit was connected and the switch played with.

[PhilA]

Loose strand of wire or something brass in the fuse box fractured and touching something?

 

Can you lokk behind the fuse block? Is it even of that type of design that the metal bits are behind and the fuses where you can get to them?

 

Phil

[alf892]

DodgeRover: Not tried blowing other fuses to see what happens.  #5 blows as soon as the battery is connected, even with all the items it should power disconnected from it.

 

Frank:  You're right!  I got confused there didn't I?  The boot lamp hasn't been refitted so the switch has nothing to switch on or off.  I expect that means the switch behaves as though it is effectively off?  Certainly there wasn't any difference when the lamp unit was connected and the switch played with.

So if fuse blows before anything switched on the fault must on the wiring be between the fusebox and switch (or is the switch itself) on one of the circuits served by no 5?

[purplebargeken]

You have tried all of the immediate stuff and as you say, going through the loom, connections, earth points and switches in a methodical manner is likely the only way to get it sorted. Incredibly frustrating as you are so near to achieving fabled MOT ready status.

[MikeKnight]

I'm going to be going through this methodically as wiring is kinda "my thing", I enjoy doing it, yes I know I'm a masochist.

 

Fuse #5 serves:

• Interior courtesy light + door switches for them - CHECKED WORKING
• Boot light + switch - CORRECTED AND CHECKED WORKING
• Cigar lighters - CHECKED WORKING
• Hazard switch - NON FUNCTIONAL (but not the cause of the #5 fault)
• Seat belt warning lights - UNKNOWN

I'll be checking the seat belt warning lights today as the passenger seat is removed, making access to the connectors for them really easy.

 

Volks mentioned that the warning light for them stopped working a short while ago so I suspect something has grounded. Perhaps they were installed without an insulating washer or the internal mechanism has gone to ground permanently, I don't know, but it's something to look at certainly.

 

Also going to look at the fuse box as Volks also mentioned before he had to wiggle it to get something to work, I suspect dodgy connections or a split wire as all the old wiring is stiff as a board.

 

All the other wiring I've put in is a bit messy right now but we're still in the testing phase. Cleanup can come after everything is working.

[Timewaster]

If the boot light is not fitted then where is the wiring for it?

Constant live and earthed through the switch I assume.

 

I wonder, is the outgoing side of the #5 fuse holder hard down to earth? could that be an easier test? Put live to one side of a lamp and connect the other side to the outgoing side of #5 fuse holder. When the light goes out, you have removed the fault.

[ruffgeezer]

You mentioned the boot light switch being missing. Is that the live side that has gone awol? If so I'd start a proper hunt for it.