Project Coalnotdole's Scimitar - Machining work: Speedometer Drive Unit 12/4/19

[Honey Badger]

Cheers, I've learned a lot of stuff through working on old cars, online reseach reading other peoples project threads on here and elswhere.

 

I always find the posts on a single topic the hardest to right up. Its difficult to explain why I've made certain choices for engineering or technical reasons without the post just being long, boring and unreadable. Its even worse when it takes place over a long time period and it has to be condensed down, edit a critical bit out and suddenly the descison making process won't make sense!

 

It would be much easier just stick up a picture of the finished article but I guess that would cheat everyone of the oppertunity to see the mistakes along the way and how the ideas evolve. I'm always amazed by how modifying one part of the car can creep into changing something else and how quickly the costs can change.

 

I'm not an expert, its all experimental and I get frustrated with the amount of time everthing takes. Really I'm desperate for the car to be usable again but I know that if I don't get things right now, I'll only have to repeat doing things in the future.

 

PS I've fixed the broken images in my last post!

 

Thanks for keeping this updated, I really enjoy seeing the Scimitar coming along so well.

 

I'd think that this is just the place for long posts detailing your choices, we would probably lap it up. The more detail the better as far as I'm concerned!

[coalnotdole]

Stainless Bumpers and other shiny things...

This post is far more straightforward... I bought some shiny stainless (Harrington) bumpers and fitted them to the car!

 

https://groupharrington.com/

 

They have actually been sat round for about 2 years, as it did not seem worthwhile fitting them while the paintwork was rough. All the bumpers that were on the car were showing their age and in places had rusted all the way through. The only really nice bits were the overiders which were nos parts when fitted in 2011. ( Scimitar overiders are shared in common with the Ford escort mk1.)

Heres an old photo from 2015 showing the drivers side front quarter, That side of the car took the brunt of last years deer strke and the bumper was bent even further out of position....



The original GTE bumpers are similar to the Coupé bumpers (1964-70) Which in turn based its bumper design on the Ford Consul Capri / Consul Classic front bumper profile!
 
Bumper Origins:
 


They were probably made by the same supplier Ford used, Pressed out on Fords tooling before being cut down and rewelded to suit Reliant’s revised designs and then chromed.

The end result was Reliant probably received a fairly consistent bumper design until 5a production ended in 1975.

My new Harrington stainless bumpers are not mass produced they are handmade, each one is effectively a close reproduction of the original made with traditional panel beating. This saves on the cost of tooling which would be prohibitively high. As a result of this production method the bumpers are slightly thinner than the originals and are a bit less rigid. As they are handmade one offs rather than a mass produced product they require a bit of trimming and adaption to get them to fit.

Here’s a picture of the new front quarter:



This required careful sanding with a flap disc where the bumper meets the overider. I probably took 3mm off The driver’s side and about 8mm off the passenger side, in both cases altering a square end profile to suit the shape of the overider.

I went for some overider rubber to offer a bit of extra protection to the overider from any movement or scratches.






The gapping is reasonably consistent both sides.



Front bumpers on I finished the nose with a new set of SCIMITAR lettering for the nose.



Overview:



The rear bumper was a bit more difficult to fit, It looks ok from a distance....



but up close it was clear there was a big problem with the positioning on the passenger side. Which had too big a gap



Compared to the drivers side which was too tight...



I spent an entire afternoon adjusting the bumper irons and tightening order and eventually managed to get a reasonable fit, I'm not entirely happy with it and I think it could be further improved but will wait until I'm back on the road...



While I was there I refitted the fuel filler and boot lock, The Fuel filler cap is brand new from Ceandees who were the original suppliers. (https://ceandess.online/presto-75-caps-accesories)

The Original filler cap was ventilated to allow the tank to breathe but as my car now breathes through a valve I went for a non ventilated cap.




Maybe the new seal and non venting cap will help stop the fuel spilling out the back under acceleration...



When playing with the Fuel filler I noticed the cap was a bit close to the body when open



I ordered some O rings to space it away from the body. Its amazing how many different sizes you can get!



Fitted:



Final picture which gives a bit more of an idea of how the bumper gapping currently looks.






Cheers,

Joe

[Jim Bell]

Shiny beans!

[Skizzer]

Interesting how much this seems to share with the Lotus Elite; the rear lights I already knew about, but the filler cap and rear wiper (and its mounting/stop) look awfully familiar too. The link to the filler cap makers is very welcome and I like the venting mod to stop paint-eating sloshage, which is an issue on the Elite under cornering rather than acceleration.

 

Love this thread - entertaining, educational and inspiring, plus it's a very good looking car.

[coalnotdole]

Project Exhaustion?

I've had the car up on axle stands more or less since it came back from the painters, Its made access better for jobs under the car and the working height is a bit better for attaching bumpers and working inside the car.

While spending some *quality time under the car routing a new braided dashboard earth (the one that runs from the roof ariel to the radio and continues all the way down to the chassis.) I couldnt help notice that the exhaust midboxes were still more or less untouched from the Head gasket failiure last year.

 

At the time I noticed both sides had blown at the point where the input pipe enters the midbox. I made a somewhat half hearted attempt to repair the drivers side with a firegum / aluminum strip kit you get at Halfords... Theory being that I would come back to the issue at some point when the car was on the road, (maybe even using it as an excuse to get a custom stainless system built.)

 

As it turned out  car never really covered any distance and I got distracted by all of the bodywork repairs.

Here’s a reminder photo of the blow on the drivers side:



And an identical one on the passenger side:




Shortly before the car came off the road due to OMGHGF I had an issue with hot running:

 

Heres the description from page 3:

 

Despite the upgrades to the cooling system (alloy radiator and uprated fan) the engine itself seemed to get very hot, Coolant use was minimal and there was no sign of contamination in either the oil or radiator cap. At the start of June under bonnet air temperatures were reaching staggeringly high temperatures the air temperature sensor measured as high as 79ºc while quing in stationary traffic. The car also developed a habit of cutting out when sat at idle; the revs would decline gradually over the course of a 10-15 seconds and would not respond to the throttle if constantly applied. Blipping the throttle would give a response and if you repeatedly blipped the throttle there would generally be a 'pop' which could be heard in the exhaust or the inlet and it would return to idling normally. This problem could also lag IE you could wait at a set of traffic lights and then drive slowly through a village only to have it affect you a few minutes later...

You may also remember these pictures of the carbon build-up on the pistons:



And The strange carbon deposit beneath the inlet valves:



I never entirely found a cause for the HGF and the state of the midboxes nagged at me until I eventually went online and tried to find a set of replacements. Scimitar midboxes as far as I can tell seem to be unique to the car, my set were stainless, produced by double SS (who made the entire exhaust system.)

Here’s a couple of overview shots of the DoubleS System On the car.





I needed an exhaust silencer with input and output of 1" 3/4 bore, the pipe configuration needed to be offset - centre in order to get the midbox to line up with the existing system. It also needed to be around 14" in length. There’s actually a fairly limited amount of choice once you consider all these requirements... There’s more choice at 2" and 2.25" but I did not want the hassle of altering the entire system and I'm not sure a 2" system would be optimal in terms of Exhaust gas velocity.

In the end I found a website which offered a silencer which seemed pretty close:

https://www.304stainlessexhaustparts.com/o7x436044-45c-off.html

A tab with it sat open for several weeks while I waited for payday. a speculative £125 later and I had 2 new silencers....

Here’s a side by side comparison new with old...





The current plan is to reuse the input and outlet pipes from the existing midboxes and weld them to the new ones.



I then got a bit keen and cut the old midboxes open....



First glance there seems to be more going on in here than expected, anecdotally GTE Midboxes have a reputation for being a bit restrictive but I had no idea they were this bad. I had expected 2 baffles creating 3 chambers which gas passed through from front to rear.

Instead this is what was inside:



Ok That last picture is a bit unclear, so heres one with arrow to show the flow of gas through the system...



The gas enters at the bottom right hand side and passes all the way through to the back of the silencer and enters chamber 1, the exhaust then enters the perforated pipe pressurising chamber 2, presumably the pressure and direction change slow the gas and dampen the sound as the gas bounces around this chamber, Gas then gets pushed into chamber 3, From here it exits via the middle pipe. However the weld around the lower (input pipe) is the joint that has failed this suggests that the entire silencer has been under far too much pressure.

I've done a bit of reading online and it seems that good exhaust design is all about achieving the best flow possible while maintaining a scavenging effect and gas velocity. There is a sweet spot that achieves a decent balance between all of these factors. Generally, any form or direction change or excess pressure in the system is viewed as a major negative.

Its hard to believe that the restriction on the exhaust did not have and affect on the carbon build up in the engine. Whether its the major factor in the HGF failure is less clear...

I'll finish with a photo looking through the new silencer...




That should be a bit less restrictive. Fingers crossed there’s enough clearance for it!

[coalnotdole]

Of Batteries and Airboxes... (Part 1.)

In this post I'm going to put the battery in the boot (YO.) Why? I hear you asking!

The short answer is its the first step towards improving the airbox / air filter setup. Anyone with a good memory may remember that back when the EFI engine went in I had some difficulty get an off the shelf air filter housing to actually fit ( the post is on page 3.) Since then I came up with several alternative ideas all of which turned out not to be straight forward. The big problem is that there is only really clearance around the top of the throttle bodies for a filter or Air horns, not both. I experimented with the idea of moving the air filter to a remote location and then making a separate plenum to cover the throttle bodies but I struggled to find a location big enough for an air filter housing.

Here’s a couple of pictures for last year, the first is a mock-up of an aftermarket air filter housing which turned out to be too big to fit anywhere.



In the second I was experimenting with the idea of putting a cone filter of some sort down by the radiator and piping it to the top of the engine. I went off the idea as the lengths were too long and it did not seem like an ideal mounting place; being too close to road grime and liable to choking from puddles, fords and flood water.



I was quite keen on the Middlebridge Scimitar setup which has a nice direct run:



But to do this on a 5a I was going to have to relocate the battery...

The second cubby hole in the boot seemed like the ideal spot, I had kept a tool bag in here but I can probably find room for that with the jack at the front of the car... The current battery is a Varta B34 a 057 /049 size battery which is about as big as you can put in the standard 5a battery shelf. Its been a pretty good battery and there was nothing wrong with it... Except that it doesn’t actually fit in the cubby hole...



Ideally I needed to get the battery down low enough to give me about 25- 30mm of clearance, room for some battery clamps and terminals. and a bit of breathing space. Which led to the end conclusion that I was going to need to modify the box (yes more fibreglass work!)



A look underneath shows that there’s not actually masses of space between the box and the rear exhaust silencer...



Around 3" actually,



Which mean't that to fit my existing Varta battery in the cubby hole with clearance I'd need to take the rear silencer off completely! This is presumably why quite a few other people just put a box or a cover over the top of the battery and forget about it! The only other option was to fit a smaller battery which with all the extra demands on the electrical system on my car was bound to be problematic.

After a bit of research online and I came across a company called Odyssey who produce a thin plate lead acid Car battery which uses a more efficient plate design to pack an equivalent power into a smaller space. Interestingly their batteries are of a Valve Regulated Lead acid (VRLA) type in which which the acid is impregnated into strips of fibreglass. This means they are able to be fitted on their sides without risk of leaking acid!

The technology to make batteries of this kind has been around for about 40-50 years, They are commonly used in industrial applications, aviation and telecoms. They haven’t really taken off with car makers possibly due to their higher costs, though they are often used in motorsport.

The best size that suited my available space was the PC950 Which offers 400 CCA and 34 amp hours. in a battery that only measures measures 250mm long, 97mm wide and 156mm high!

They are pretty pricey compared to a standard Car battery as they cost roughly twice as much!

It turns out that the factory that makes them (for the European market) is in Newport, Wales so at least you can buy safe in the knowledge that your supporting British / Welsh Jobs and Industry!

There’s a video of them being made in their USA plant Here:

And a bit more on VRLA's development here:
http://www.batteriesinternational.com/2016/09/21/half-century-of-the-vrla-battery/

So inevitably I bought one...

Its quite small really,



Specs:






(Part two will have to wait as its getting late and this post is getting quite long)

[Stanky]

Interesting, how do they compare price-wise (and spec wise) to a Li-Ion 12v car battery? As I understood these can be very powerful, have a longer service life than a lead acid battery and are both small and light? Though you do lose originality I'd imagine.

 

Well done, nice to keep seeing these interesting updates.

[Jim Bell]

You have to be careful when buying batteries. Check what other companies Charge, because if you dont, that could Lead to being Overcharged, which could be Terminal.

[coalnotdole]

Interesting, how do they compare price-wise (and spec wise) to a Li-Ion 12v car battery? As I understood these can be very powerful, have a longer service life than a lead acid battery and are both small and light? Though you do lose originality I'd imagine.

 

Well done, nice to keep seeing these interesting updates.

 

A quick Look online suggests a similar size Li-Ion Car Batteries are avaialble, https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Super-B-Race-Car-Battery-15P-SC-SB12V15P-SC-Rally-Race-Performance-Track-/121234460984?_trksid=p2349526.m4383.l4275.c10

 

or A UK Made Varley Here: https://www.demon-tweeks.co.uk/motorsport/batteries/varley-lithium-li-16-battery-with-6-amp-charger

 

Expensive though at £7-800! for a battery! Li-Ion also currently has disadvantages relating to how it behaves in extreme high and low temeratures, They can also get very hot, and have the potental to Explode! I'm also not sure the Charge cycle suits a road car. Their main benefit seems to be around weight saving which isnt really an issue for me.

 

The battery I bought cost me £137 with a bit of shopping around, Arguably 3 times the cost of a conventional lead-acid battery.

[Stanky]

Crumbs, I didn't realise Li-Ion were THAT expensive. Having a bit more of a look there seem to be lots for motorbike applications, but with a corresponding CCA rating, and presumably lower Ah ratings too which wouldn't be suitable for the additional load you're putting on it, so fair enough. Maybe put loads of 2032 batteries in a shoebox and it'll sort of be the same?

 

I like the idea of the batteries being able to go any way up without leaking everywhere though,

 

£137 isn't too bad, certainly can spend a lot more on a conventional battery if you don't know where to look and mooch into Halfords on a sunday afternoon looking lost.

[coalnotdole]

Of Batteries and Airboxes Part 2:

 

I knew before I ordered it that i still did not have quite enough space in the box to get the lid on ( it was about 10mm away from the lid being an interference fit with the terminals. ) This was close enough lower the bottom of the cubby box by about 35mm and still have a good amount of air room between the box and the silencer.

 

Fibreglass time (again.) I had to cut out a section of the wheelarch liner in order to gain a bit of working room.

 

 

 

Better make sure there’s room for the silencer still,

 

 

Wheel arch liner goes back on:

 

 

 

With a bit of black primer you can hardly tell its been changed...

 

 

 

I still needed to drill a hole for the grommet (theres no room for a drill from outside the box as the chassis is in the way, and there’s not enough clearance to get a drill inside the box from inside. So I resorted to using the hole saw by hand which took ages!

 

 

I really need to get a Makita Right angle drill for jobs like this. https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Makita-DDA350Z-18V-LXT-10mm-Angle-Drill-Body-Only/231673958298?ssPageName=STRK%3AMEBIDX%3AIT&_trksid=p2055119.m1438.l2649

 

Inevitably I had to buy a load of cable too, I've gone for Oceanflex as its tinned and designed to resist corrosion. 35mm² would probably have been acceptable in this application, but because of the long cable run and to mitigate against voltage drop in the end I've gone for 50mm² cable and a dedicated battery earth too, instead of having a short run of earth cable between the chassis and battery.

 

 

I've bought some Terminals to go at the engine bay end which will link the battery in to the wiring loom(s) connect to the starter / alternator / amplifier and all of the existing earths from the chassis / engine. Not totally sure where they will be mounted yet!

 

 

 

I've also got some plastic mounts to secure the cable as it runs under the car.

 

 

I'm going for an under car routing as there’s not much room along the chassis rails for 2 massive cables. Instead the new battery wires run along the top of the gearbox tunnel, there’s a decent amount of space to do this, but access is hindered a bit by the drivetrain.

 

 

 

 

 

I've created a few custom aluminium brackets to route the cable round diffiult spots. The bolt is going through 3mm ally flatbar tapped at 1/4" unf with a dab of locktite to hold it captive.

 

 

Here it is fitted:

 

 

Heres where the cable enters the new battery box, I've added a main battery fuse too as a bit of extra protection against the cable running under the car being damaged and causing a major short.

 

For the time being the battery wires are sticking up through this grommet until I can work out a neat mounting point for the junction boxes.

 

 

Final photo showing the space I've now got which I can use to create an air box.

 

 

There may be the option to take in cool air from the radiator ducting or the wheel arch area. A future project. The car will go back on the road with the current filter (probably)

 

Cheers

 

Joe

[Asimo]

I have one of those Makita 90degree drills, it has saved the day on many occasions.

 

(From the scrap bin at work - I asked if I could have it for parts, for model making etc, and was told it was fucked.

It didn't work at all - until I got it home and pressed the overload reset button)

[mk2_craig]

I love the general "improve it from that'll-do to belt-and-braces" mindset going on here. Reading this thread you do get the impression that the original car was engineered to a bare minimum standard rather than for a long lifespan, which is at odds with the non-corroding bodywork and probably why there still seems to be an awful lot of these things festering for years on driveways.

[coalnotdole]

I love the general "improve it from that'll-do to belt-and-braces" mindset going on here. Reading this thread you do get the impression that the original car was engineered to a bare minimum standard rather than for a long lifespan, which is at odds with the non-corroding bodywork and probably why there still seems to be an awful lot of these things festering for years on driveways.

 

Cheers, like any other manufacturer Reliant had to build to a cost and there are compromises there, unlike British Leyland they actually had to make a profit too!

 

The cars have certainly survived far better than their competitors. Tamworth were still offering a a very traditional coach-built product well beyond the point when it had been diched by virtually every other car maker and it shows in the numbers of cars that survived. The production method / longevity were always a big selling point for both their economy and premium cars.

 

That they survived so well has doubtless helped keep prices low, The Scimitar marque remained quite desirable through the 80's and early 90's The cars were very capable and people bought them and used them intensively as their principal transport. The owners club was at its peak at this point and there were a large number of marque specialists, dealers, restorers and parts specialists. Values remained stable and cars particularly the early models were being restored. (people were even paying specialists to restore their Scimitar!) I once broke a car that had had a £20,000 restoration in the early 90's.

 

While some cars were well cared for a sizable chunk were run into the ground, often worn out cosmetically with scabby paintwork and tired interiors. Mechanically they are straightforward but like any car of their era they need more maintaining than a modern, a few years of neglect to the front trunnion grease nipples could easily ruin a set of vertical links and fail an MOT. As they were fibreglass and harder to scrap neglected cars tended to be parked up out the way somewhere and forgotten about. I think by the late 90's there was already a glut of old Scimitars festering on driveways and barns and fields.

 

I think by then the number of people who ran a 60's or 70's car as a daily had declined, the typical classic car owner was now after something for the weekend, convertible and something to drive to a show on a Sunday. The niche for people who take their car continental touring isn’t nearly as big. I'm sure the number of ropey looking cars around subconsciously cast a bit of a negative image among prospective owners too.

 

As a result its generally only as the numbers of cars have thinned a bit have prices started to rise, particularly for cars in good condition. A 1972 GTE in good condition sold in a Brightewells sale on the 16th of May for more than £9000 so perhaps things are changing. There has definitely been an increase in interest in the marque from the continent. Where scimitars are seen as more exotic and perhaps a brisk continental tourer makes more sense? The Continental buyers are generally looking for cars close to factory standard, in good condition which again is not all that common.

 

I've long since stopped counting what I've spent on this one!

[coalnotdole]

Headlining Replacement.

Ever since I've had the GTE Its had a horrible rip in the headlining around the base of the rear view mirror, Its always annoyed me a bit but for 7 years I put up with it. I struggled to find a photo showing the rip as I tended to frame any photos I took of the interior to deliberately leave it out.

This picture sort of shows it:



I'd always intended to make up a patch in a period fabric and somehow cover it up. Possibly stitching it to the existing headliner in situ, and relying on the rear view mirror screw holes to hold it up.

With the windscreen out for the respray I finally decided to have a go at making a patch:



After some experimenting i found it was surprisingly hard to get a patch that looked any good, there were problems with the contours of the roof, attachment to the existing headlining and generally how it worked aesthetically. The final versions involved backing vinyl onto wire a mesh backing and mounting it via the mirror mount with an additional mount point with a bracket created below the radio aerial.





After staring at it for a while I eventually reached the conclusion that the entire 'patch' idea was a bit shit and I then took the old headliner down... Committed now!



I"d seen a Scimitar headliner on eBay which was either new, or new old stock. I put a decent bid on it and was pretty sure I'd win it...

Inevitably someone else came along and outbid me, which left me with a problem. Do I buy an new headliner from a Scimitar specialist? Attempt a repair of the old headliner or try and make my own from scratch...?

The original headlining is an uncommon ribbed fabric in my 5a, I suspect its a nylon based synthetic fabric, woven to give the an interesting ribbed pattern. I'm pretty sure later cars had plain headlining straight from the factory, Probably a wool blend (nylon / wool without the ribbing) and were available in black on tan depending on the interior trim.

Close inspection of the old headliner showed it was thinner, more threadbare, faded and and moth eaten than expected, now it was off the car it was probably better to replace it completely.

I spent ages looking for a supplier who could offer a nylon / wool fabric that was a good match to the original (with woven ribbing naturally) and after many sample swatches I eventually concluded that it was very difficult to get something that closely matched the original.

Heres another look at that ribbed pattern;



In the end I gave up on finding a suitable ribbed fabric and ordered the most premium 80% wool fabric sold by Martrim.

My mum is a professional seamstress ( though she's more used to working on costumes for the biggest names in film and television than making car headlining.) Fortunately for me she had a quiet spell between jobs and was able to help make and fit the new headlining. the old headlining became the template closely replicating the dimensions and construction method of the original.



Supporting bars/ Rods



Dry fitting:



The headliner was left for a few days under tension to allow the wool to relax into position and and then it could be trimmed to size:



It was then glued and re-tensioned,



The critical part of tensioning a fabric headliner is to have a person each side to maintain tension as its glued and plenty of suitable pegs, The final result looks pretty good.



After the headlining had gone in I was able to move onto sorting the a-pillar trims and the end result looks pretty good.





There were also some small jobs to do like retirimming the interior light base so it matched the headliner:

Original:



Cover peeled off the fibreglass moulding the gelcoat is black, its actually bare in this photo:



Recovering:



Fitted:



After the headliner was finally in it was at last possible to refit the side windows. The seals were new in 2011 they are not perished but have distorted a bit, The chrome though is quite pitted and so I'm on the lookout for a set of clear side windows with decent frames.









Cheers

Joe
 

[vulgalour]

That old headlining looks for all the world like upholstery grade corduroy.  Trying to find UV stable corduroy now is very difficult and it's usually a different sort of weave to it, as you no doubt discovered.  New headlining looks really nice, in keeping with everything else since you avoided going down the black leather-look, or alcantara.  You wouldn't know it was new if you weren't told, in a good way that is.

[DeeJay]

In comparison the original looks as though an old quilt had been nailed to the roof.

Yours looks like the way it should've left the factory.

[coalnotdole]

Cheers,
 
I did look at quite a few upholstery fabrics, (lots of samples were ordered!)
 
In the end none were the right pattern, or if the pattern was ok they were then too strechy or not 'black' enough.
 
There are some lessons I've learened, virtually all the jobs fitting a headliner of this type requires a second pair of hands, There is a dark art to getting the tension right and getting the seams to sit nicely and straight.
 
The new fabric is quite a bit thicker than the old stuff which has meant that the side window rubber shows some lumps where the seams are.

You can kind of see it in this picture.
 

[danthecapriman]

That looks brilliant. Well done (and well done mum!) doing that and getting a great finish.

I tried a headlining some years ago and completely fucked it up! It’s much harder to do right than it looks.

[coalnotdole]

Generating More work for myself... (continued now part 3!)

Yes this is a follow up from the last post about the Denso alternator... sorry!

 

Shortly after starting the modifications covered in my last post I began reading up on modern ford alternators (under the belief that my new alternator was originally intended to fit to a focus or transit connect.) It turns out that modern ford alternators use a smart charge system. Where the regulation of the output is governed by an ecu (PCM power control module) This helps ensure modernz have the charge optimised for engine efficiency and performance. (Who knew?)

In my application smart control wasn’t going to be ideal as I have not got a Powertrain control module to control the output also I don't really need the added complexity that such a system would offer. After some time on google I was pleased to find my alternator was not actually a Ford one. It was instead intended for a variety of Chrysler products....

To be specific my donor alternator was intended to be fitted to a Chrysler Cirrus, Dodge Stratus or a Plymouth Breeze made between 1995-2000. In the UK all these are hopelessly obscure, I'd never heard of any of them before! not ideal from a future spares point of view. This may also explain why this alternator was so cheap on eBay and why I was the only bidder.

To make matters worse those cars all used an ECU governed regulator not that far from the Ford Focus concept.

Heres an alternator wiring diagram for one of the Chrysler cars. (The key point being that the field control of the alternator is being managed by the PCM)



Eventually I decided to take my alternator apart and have a look.... The lack of a heatsink under the cover confirmed my fears that this unit was externally regulated.



Brown plastic and a resistor where Ideally there would have been a regulator:



At this point the sensible call would have been to either a) buy another Denso alternator with internal regulation or give up. instead I resorted to plan c…

Surely it would be possible to just covert the alternator I’d got by swapping the internal parts over? WCPGW?

I started by ordering a random regualtor based on nothing more than it having the same plug type and the correct mounting dimensions,



New and old comparison:



Initally it looked quite promising:



When I tried to fit it with the bush box there was clearly something that wasn’t lining up ... the brush box was not compatible with the new regulator.



back to eBay… New brush box purchased.





All the parts fitted together ok, but were they compatible? I wasn’t sure. But at least they fitted under the rear cover.

I then got keen and modified the backplate to give the heatsink better airflow…



The bottom mounts were reamed out a bit to alow the alternator to sit on the new tubular spacer…



and the bracket was reshaped to maximise the range of movement (to help get the fan belt on)



The fan pulley was shimmed to get the alignment just right.





This last shot shows what its all been about. improving output while keeping a decent gap between ther servo on one side and rocker cover on the other side, while still allowing enough adjustment.



Its now ready for powered testing... Or is it?

To be continued….

 

PS well done to anyone who bothered to read this far, Stay tuned next post is about wiring. I Can't promise it will be any more exiting though....

[mat_the_cat]

Wiring is my favourite part, so it'll be exciting at least for me. Great work!

[Guest Hooli]

Nice work there, I'm preparing to be impressed when it works.

[406V6]

<anorak mode on>

Chrysler Cirrus, Dodge Stratus, Plymouth Breeze are all Chrysler products, a competitor to GM

<anorak mode off>

[coalnotdole]

<anorak mode on>

Chrysler Cirrus, Dodge Stratus, Plymouth Breeze are all Chrysler products, a competitor to GM

<anorak mode off>

 

Cheers, I should probably edit that!

[coalnotdole]

Nice work there, I'm preparing to be impressed when it works.

 

I'll be impressed if it doesnt catch fire...

[coalnotdole]

Wiring refurbishment (part 2): The main Loom

I last wrote about wiring in March… its now August, refurbishment and modification of the wiring loom consumed more 3 weekends in the end. As it turned out they had to be spread out over a few months due to a need to find time when both Dave and myself were available to deal with it. Lots of the smaller jobs like refurbishing switches have been done by me in and around those weekends.

Working on a complicated job like this throws up all sorts of issues, simple stuff like beginning a job and discovering that the wires ordered for a job are all odd colours and you can’t remember why you ordered them. Or discovering that all the fuseboxes you’ve got are horrible… Having been damaged by 40 years worth of battery acid and partially melted. Or simply forgetting where you’d got to with a job because you last worked on it 5 weeks ago...!

Full credit needs to go to Dave for his help on the wiring (and on this project generally actually.) His marine electrics background has once again proved invaluable. I’m not sure I would have been able to do anywhere as near a tidy job working on my own. Even with an electrics specialist to help this has been a horrible job. One I won’t be in a rush to repeat.

My last post on wiring in March showed the loom I was planning on using, Its from a 1975 car so has a few minor differences compared to a 1972 car but as we’re customising it they shouldn’t matter.

All the loom tape was stripped off it, taking care to leave the factory electrical tape in place, this was to help show where the spurs and connectors branch off. The wires were cleaned of any sticky residue oil contamination etc. Insulation was inspected for damage and where needed continuity checked.

Heres a photo showing the main loom at the early stages:



Before starting this I’d ordered a decent amount of replacement connectors, Uninsulated ring terminals, assorted sizes of uninsulated spade terminals and hard and soft covers. As well as some more specialist connectors and pins for the Rists multi-plugs. The general approach was to replace anything which looked damaged or worn or any connector with was corroded.

Most of the earths were replaced, though those behind the dashboard were generally in good condition, most spade terminals were also changed.

Heres an original Lucas Rists multiplg with some new pins:



Heres a closeup of the back of the dash. with the checked over wiring being connected up to the gauges in the foreground, in the background you can still see some of the old blue bullets that were being replaced.



There were a few small splits to deal with such as these feeds for brake pad warning and brake fluid level which had been scotch locked together.





The fuse box was evaluated and in the end Dave decided to remove all the terminals from the board. Using a modified screwdriver and a bit of messing about they can be released. (We ended up doing this to all of my second hand fuse boxes to ensure we had plenty of termials )







At this point there was a trawl round online to find a modern alternative, theres lots of aftermarket fuse boards out there, however few are compact enough to fit in the standard location and look tidy. Those that are suitable a few were ruled out for looking offensively budget, others would have needed new brackets or alternative mountings making. The worst flaw with the standard fuse box seemed to be the plastic had melted around some of the higher load fuses. Dave was convinced that with some careful soldering some bridging cables would prevent this by ensuring good connectivity to both sides of the fuse... This assumed I could find an origonal fuse box in good condition! Some searching required then...

Heres a picture of the main loom after all the connectors had been checked:



At this point the dashboard end of the loom was ready, wiring for the heated front screen, fog and spotlights had all been added and the wires had been rerapped with non adhesive PVC loom tape.



The taping was only done as far as the fuse box as that had yet to be sorted out.



Also I needed to find a location in the engine bay for all the wiring to connect to the battery… The cables were all left long to leave enough to reach somewhere suitable…



To be continued...

[Guest Hooli]

I've wired an old bike from scratch, it took a lot less wire than that & was fiddly enough to make a tidy job of it.

[coalnotdole]

Wiring & Electrics (part 3): Dashboard Switches, Modules and a radio…

A few years back I fitted Lumenition electic ignition to my GTE and in order to keep the rev counter working I had to convert my older smiths RVI rev counter into an RVC type.

Theres a company called Spiyda who make a conversion board to do this. https://www.spiyda.com

While I was ordering their rev counter kit I happened to notice that they also did a solid state voltage stabiliser and a fuel warning light module. So I bought those as well. the rev counter kit was used straight away but the other two modules were left sitting in a crate for the next 3 years waiting for me to actually do something with the electrics…

I bought the fuel warning light control module as the standard Lucas one tended to turn itself on randomly below half a tank. and would be on constantly below 1/3rd of a tank.

The new module is measures the resistance from the sender and can be setup to suit a range of different sender types and can be calibrated to switch the fuel warning light on exactly when you want it.



Dave then got carried away and decided to fit the new solid state voltage stabiliser inside the case of an original Lucas one…



Its riveted to the case which will in turn be earthed somewhere suitable.



connections soldered:




I’ve bought some timed heated window relays. These will allow the front or rear heated windows to be operated on a 5 minute timer. They will probably live on top of the radio so they can be got at easily when the dash is fitted.





To operate the new heated screens I have altered the existing heated rear window switch. Normally on the GTE  the heated rear window is on simple rocker that is either on / off. The aim was to modify it to a momentary type doing: front /off / rear. This sounds horrifically complicated but is actually a fairly easy job!

I started by sorting through my collection of used switches and found a spare screen wash switch,



I took it apart cleaned the terminals up and changed the centre over!



As a final improvement I polished the plastic surround with Autosol and it cleaned up quite nicely. It worked so well I ended up doing it on several other surrounds. until I had enough for all the switches.



As I’d begun to fit up the dashboard this seemed like a good time to think about the radio

In 1972 as standard Reliant were offering a radiomobile (1095x) as standard which picked up long wave or mw but that was about it. Optional extra would have been a 8 track and later in the 5a production run they offered a Phillips cassette player for a whopping £85 thats the equivalent of £847.17 in todays money!

I had no radio at all when I bought the car in 2010 and during the rebuild fitted a radiomobile 1085x I bought at a car boot sale for £3. It looked wonderfully period but was hopeless at receiving a signal with the engine running (not helped by a lack of suppression on my non standard wiring loom,) This was never major problem as I did without radio in favour of just listening to stuff through my iPod fed directly into the amplifier. Over time though I started to miss live radio (mainly radio 4 and Kerrang (when in the midlands.))

What I needed was a period radio that could pickup FM and would not look out of place on the dashboard… easier said than done. I wanted something that was identifiably 70’s. Before the din mount and the graphic equaliser...

A simple Blaupunkt would probably have done but I was consistently outbid on those. After a long search I came across a seemingly ideal unit. It was FM capable, push button, had a decent amount of features for an early radio. Its in decent working order too and even the cassette function works. I’ve even got a few tapes knocking around to use with it bought before the hipsters drove the prices up.

Motorola: 708





The whole unit seems very well put together I’m guessing it was probably mainly sold as an aftermarket upgrade? I can find hardly any information about it online. I did manage to find a picture of the UK factory that made it though…



I Actually came across that on this old forum post: http://autoshite.com/topic/8787-doomsday/

I’m aiming to keep my existing amplifier and speaker setup, with iPod input and I'll try and figure out a way of switching the inputs.

Slightly annoyingly when I trial fitted the radio the stainless surround did not fit into the scimitars dashboard. If it can’t be modified I’ll probably just leave it off.



The photo above shows the radio without the surround, also I’ve finally fitted a volt meter with the right colour needle! (white not orange) and you can see a few of the refurbished switches.

Heres an overview of the dash with all the short runs connected to the gauges.



and another shot from the front:

[vulgalour]

That's a really nice job.  Honestly, the radio looks fine without the stainless trim, it matches the rest of the dials after all.

 

Nice Y THO face on the centre console in that last photo too.

[coalnotdole]

 

Nice Y THO face on the centre console in that last photo too.

 

I'm channeling my inner geek here! but I've often thought the 5a dashboard look's like it should have been the inspiration for Darth Vader's mask ...

 

Well they are both evil collections of featureless geometric black plastic at least!