classic car forum header
Classic cars forum & vehicle restoration.
 FAQFAQ   SearchSearch   MemberlistMemberlist   UsergroupsUsergroups 
 ProfileProfile   Log in to check your private messagesLog in to check your private messages   Log inLog in 
Register     Posting Photographs     Privacy     F/book OCC Facebook     OCC on Patreon

1951 Lanchester LD10
Goto page Previous  1, 2, 3 ... 27, 28, 29 ... 38, 39, 40  Next
Post new topic   Reply to topic    Classic cars forum & vehicle restoration. Forum Index -> All our old cars, vans, lorries etc
Author Message
Vulgalour



Joined: 08 May 2018
Posts: 473
Location: Kent

PostPosted: Sun Oct 24, 2021 8:12 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

I couldn't say. They do give a 'click' as you lift them and they haven't seemed particularly flappy in the little we've moved the car. Perhaps it's a slightly different design?
Back to top
View user's profile Send private message
Vulgalour



Joined: 08 May 2018
Posts: 473
Location: Kent

PostPosted: Sun Oct 24, 2021 8:12 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

https://youtu.be/YXMHwp48SVw

Lanchester un-wiring, part 2. This is perhaps one of the dullest and most frustrating aspects of the project so far. However, it's also one of the most important jobs to do. Stripping everything down to a bare shell and chassis would undoubtedly have made this a lot easier, instead we're doing it the hard way. Picking up where we left off, here's how the headlight retaining spring works. You pull (if it's still present) a little tab under the headlight bezel and that compresses a spring which you can see in the bottom of the bowl, the two large loops there, this then allows you to easily remove the bezel and keeps the bezel in place safely the rest of the time. One of our headlights is missing the pull tab but the bezel is incredibly difficult to remove anyway so it's not a big worry, it's clearly been this way for a long time too.



You've seen the headlight stripped down on the other side, this side went much the same. Sidelight this side also needed to be un-wired and as on the other side, it's missing the little tang that provides an earth and has been given one of those thick copper wire loops as a repair at some point in its life. This copper wire works most of the time, we'll be replacing it with something that will hopefully work better.




The wiring runs from the sidelight to the upper side of the wing brace where there's a little clip that screws/bolts on to guide the wiring down the brace and toward the chassis. As is usual with the wiring on this car, the red and blue connectors have been out in force and one had disintegrated.





Before too long I had all the wiring for the front lights pulled out to the chassis and could turn my attention to the other items branching off from the main harness, namely the wiring for the stator tube. I've never dealt with stator tubes before but I did understand the basic principle. The new harness doesn't include the stator tube wiring and I've been warned variously that it's not the nicest job to do. Since we're doing all of the other wiring on the car, the stator tube wiring will also be replaced. Someone has been here before, as evidenced by the non-factory connectors.


Those connectors join the wires that run from the horn and semaphore control down the stator tube inside the steering column, to the rest of the harness. At the stator tube end, you need to disconnect it from the bottom of the steering box where the wires pop out. It's also at this moment that you realise the implications of a car with no seatbelts and a steering column that is one steel rod inside another steel rod with no ability to crumple... and then promptly put it out of your head because contemplating one's own mortality is distracting when you're trying to complete a job.


At this point I didn't remove the stator tube wiring, instead I was focusing on the main harness and ancilliary items like this could be removed afterwards. Breaking the job into smaller sections like this helped me keep progressing without getting bogged down in lots of smaller challenges. Before much longer I had all of the wiring harness that served the front lights removed.






In places, spectacularly poor condition. It's amazing that everything actually worked, and a little bit more clear as to why things gradually stopped working the more we dug into the car. Now I knew what was what with this, I could focus on removing the last bits of wiring from the voltage regulator connection thingy.


As before, care was taken to label as I went and before long, all those wires were out too.


That left me with some wires that went down to the chassis, and very little else. I tidied the wires up around one of the radiator stays (radiator is removed at present, which is why the stay is floating in mid-air) just to prevent getting into a tangle, and moved on to the next task.


But first, a moment to admire the dedication someone had to keeping this wiring going. It's funny, we think of these sorts of bodges as being a terrible thing but without it, this car would not have survived as long as it did. It's a sign of someone doing their best, within their means, to keep a car going that was basically worthless and when it got too much to keep going, they squirreled it away with the intention of doing something about it later. You've got to admire that really, and then replace it for the sake of safety and reliability, of course.


I decided the stator tube wiring was probably the best thing to tackle next. You're supposed to drain the steering box, then remove the nut the wiring goes through and remove the olive behind. This should then free up the stator tube which you can pull into the car and hopefully it's short enough that it doesn't actually touch the roof.




I couldn't find any drain point on the steering box, only four bolts holding the end plate in place. I couldn't find any contradictory evidence and recalled watching some American hot rod builders draining steering boxes by just undoing the plate and getting the thick oil inside all over everything so assumed that must be the way it's done. Undid the bolts and sure enough, out came the really quite clean oil.


Unfortunately, that's as far as I got with this one. I did discuss in various places how best to proceed because I could not get the olive to budge at all so the stator tube is stuck in the end plate of the steering box. It seems the olive has got stuck to the tube. I know a bit better now how to tackle this job then when I recorded the video so I have a few options to try, one of which is cutting a slot in the olive. Once the olive is free I should be able to pull the tube and wiring out and then repair the horn/semaphore hub that I incorrectly dismantled previously. Had to shelf this job for now.

I moved on to the interior of the car, the more old wiring that could be removed the better. Easiest item was likely to be the interior light. The cover twists off, being held in bayonet bulb fashion, and you can then see the screws that hold it to the plywood square that's fastened to the wooden roof beam behind the head lining.


Really simple to remove, simple unscrew the few screws holding it in place, and remove the two wires. This part of the wiring at least looked untouched. Set the interior light assembly aside for cleaning and safe keeping since there's nothing else to be done there at this point. You can also see the original salmony-pink colour of the headlining here, a much brighter colour than expected. Pat and I will be having a go at carefully cleaning the headlining since it's not as brittle as feared, but it's unlikely it will come back the same pinkish hue because so much of it will just be sun and age faded now.


The semaphores need a service and the easiest way to inspect and service those would be to remove them, so let's do that. First thing I learn is that the fabric I thought had been cut through hadn't, it's actually like that from the factory. What's missing is the passenger side B pillar trim which we'll likely have to make from scratch. Pat and I have been on the look out for some replacement old brown Rexine and suitable wool to get as close as match to the rest of the interior as we can. If need be we'll use new materials, but old and aged would be better.


The semaphores are held in place by two screws, one at the top and one at the bottom. These are pretty easy to access once you've removed the b-pillar trim which is also held in with two screws. One our car, the semaphores don't match, and neither do any of the fixings, and it's very clear someone has been in here before.


What's less clear is exactly what was and wasn't changed. The slot on the passenger side semaphore (the newer, more orange looking one) is a very peculiar shape.


The wiring is simple to remove. The top fixing screw holds two black wires, and then there's a red wire that goes to a bullet connector holder. Here's the passenger side semaphore removed. They pull into the inside of the car, you can't remove them from the outside.


On the driver's side, the two black wires end in nothing but stubby little bare wires. What's really strange here is that this semphore worked just fine, the wires must have been resting in just the right place to make contact. The fixing screws on this side were also mismatched, and the bottom one had an enormous stack of washers to get it to the right place. The semaphore itself works just fine, the way it was attached and the wiring leave something to be desired.


With both semaphores removed you can see the difference between them. It's not just the colour, the design of them is slightly different so that the stainless strip and lens aren't interchangable. Pat and I assume the passenger side one was replaced at some point, and we'll leave them be for as long as they work, there seems no point forking out large sums of money for matching replacements, at least for this car.


With the semphores and interior light removed, it was time to figure out how to remove the wiring that goes to them. Up until the point of recording, there had been no clear answer on the physical wiring route. Similar models from a similar time period had offered suggestions, it was now time to find out what the answer really was. We had initially thought the wiring for the semaphores and interior light would go either over the front doors and down to the engine bay, or down the A pillar and join the wiring along the chassis. Instead, it turns out it takes a different route, our first clue being the wiring harness that disappeared from the boot and into a cavity alongside the rear seat on the driver's side of the car. Some careful investigation revealed that, sure enough, the wiring doubles back when it gets to the boot so that it can come back into the car. Carefully prying back the trim board that looks like the last section of the headlining showed us just where the main harness was running.




Knowing this we could apply some logic to work out where it went. It was obvious it was going up over the rear door frame so it was unlikely it was going to go back across the rear seat. Also, we'd had the rear seat base out and knew there was nowhere for the wiring to actually go there that we couldn't see. This started to make sense of why the trim over the driver's side doors was loose and broken at the b-pillar; someone must have been investigating the wiring on this side. With that trim removed and set aside, the passenger side trim was also removed since we now knew that we'd need access and more proof that the wiring had been investigated was found because some of the headlining tacks were missing entirely over the B-pillar, just the rusty witness marks remained.


Now it was a case of figuring out how to un-wire this. Because we weren't removing the headlining, and because we now discovered it wasn't held by bows but was instead tacked to the wooden beams of the roof, we had to work in what space was offered. Thankfully the fabric wasn't that brittle so tolerated being handled and moved out of the way quite well with no horrible tearing noises. We learned that the wiring runs up from the top of the semaphore, through a hole in the wooden frame diagonally backwards to another hole in the metal frame which then guides the wiring across the roof above the headlining.


Needed more access so some more tacks needed to come out. Rather than a specialised tack removal tool, which had a habit of slipping off the tack heads and jabbing into the fabric, I used a combination of wire snips and a sharp screwdriver to pry out the tacks. This worked really very well and the headlining survived unscathed. This gave better access to get my hands and arms into the tight working space and start unthreading the wiring.



on the driver's side, it's a little harder to unthread things because there's more wires going through the holes, this is because this side serves both the sempahore and the wiring for the interior light and other semaphore. Above the passenger side B pillar there's only need for the one set of wiring since it's only going to one item.


While investigating the wiring route it became clear the wiring for the interior light wasn't loose. This is because it's stapled to the plywood block the interior light screws into. There's one staple on the same side the interior light fastens to, and another on the edge of the plywood. Removing these is tricky and I did have to cut the wiring hole larger to get to the staples, which are particularly nasty looking things.




Then it was a case of tying string to every wiring end before pulling the wiring through. In theory, this will help guide the new wiring through the same route and make the process of re-wiring things a lot easier since so much of it is working blind because the headlining is not being removed.




With care, the wiring was pulled out and into the boot. This is much easier with two people. If you're doing it on your own, whenever you feel things getting tight, check things haven't got snagged. The last thing you want is the string snapping when the wiring is in an inaccessible spot.


The wiring was then held in place by the boot hinge and trim panel, and the connectors at the boot floor. I was surprisingly exhausted at this point, never underestimate the ability for this sort of job to knacker you out, especially when it's hot and you're working in a black car in the sunshine. Lots and lots of water was drunk that day, and ice creams had. Still, it felt a good milestone to reach.


Next up, the boot light. I'm not really sure what's going on with the wiring for the boot light, it's clearly been messed about with over the years. I just wanted to remove the lamp for now and the wiring I could get to, later I would remove the boot lid to do a more thorough job, as will become clear in a later update. First, unscrew the inside-out-bolt (threads are on the inside of the shank) and then lift the chrome cover free, and then the glass cover.


It's pretty grimey inside. There's two connectors here, one the bullet connector type as is common on this car, and the other a spade connector. The wiring is unsurprisingly terrible but the unit itself is in good shape. If the worst came to the worst, these Lucas light units are still readily available, but it shouldn't come to that.


Not much else I could do there, so I moved to the only other bit of wiring that was on the top side of the car, which is the wiring for the rear lights. The rear lights had been working when we got the car and then one day they just didn't any more. We hadn't looked into it further because we knew the wiring was getting replaced, now perhaps we'd find out a reason. Rear lights are fairly easy to remove, first unscrew the big chrome screws that hold the bezel and glass lens in place. Do be careful with the lens, they really are glass.


Behind that is the metal reflector, such as it is, and a rubber seal. I removed the rubber seal here because I couldn't see the fixings for the reflector, I suspect that's not always necessary. There should be one screw at the top and another at the bottom, on our car of the four screws that should hold both rear reflectors on, only one remains, the other three having snapped off in the aluminium housings that the reflectors screw to, so that's going to be fun to sort out.




Predictably there was quite a bit of aluminium corrosion, dirt, and other corrosion back here. There is a rudimentary splash guard inside the rear arch that's supposed to protect this but it doesn't really. The contacts are supposed to be protected by a rubber boot which keeps the dirt out, but not the corrosion. There's nothing else to offer protection for the earth wire. Everything was covered in dirt, I can't imagine the connection was particularly good and that's probably why the lights stopped working.




another thing that probably doesn't help is the wires are connected with a spring-loaded connector, much like you'd have for speaker cables on old hi-fi equipment. One connector was jammed, the other moved after a little effort. You push the exposed ends of the connector down and then you can pull the wire out, simple stuff.


More evidence of wiring fettling before us is in the form of the rear lights themselves. Passenger side has what looks to be factory white reflector, with a ribbed lens. Driver's side has had the reflector repainted in red oxide, and has a later built-in-reflector type lens. Pat and I think the ribbed lens is original because the car has aftermarket reflectors screw to the boot lid. We also suspect that one of the original lenses was broken when the rear wing was hit in the distant past. Quite why only one lens was replaced even though a matching pair of the reflector types came with the car we don't know, perhaps a job that was just never got around to.




That all sorted, it was time to pull out the wiring. Simply pull the wiring inside the boot once you've disconnected the rear light and through it comes, no bother. The rusty hole in the inner arch is one of the very few bits of bodywork that needs addressing and should be a nice simple repair. The bullet connectors on the driver's side were also disconnected, ready for the next bit.




Last bit of wiring to get out of the boot is the bit that joins the two rear lights together. This runs along the blind side of the beam that supports the boot shelf. The boot shelf is there to keep your luggage and other things off the spare wheel and tools. The wiring is held in place with flathead bolts and nuts, with the nut on the blind side. Initially I thought the screw was into a threaded section of the support bar, but it's not. Be careful here because the bolt heads are very soft. I put a 10mm spanner on the nut and turned it back and forth a few times to break the hold, and then unscrewed the bolt from the front which seemed to work best. You can then release the P clips and remove the wiring.








And that is where we leave this update because that's the end of the video. Part 3 comes out on Tuesday the 26th of October, and we shall pick the story up then.
Back to top
View user's profile Send private message
Vulgalour



Joined: 08 May 2018
Posts: 473
Location: Kent

PostPosted: Mon Oct 25, 2021 2:58 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

Well, I made a little mistake above. I have been made aware that what I've done there is do a write up for both part 2 of the wiring, and the as-yet-unreleased part 3 and put them all together as one post. The peril of being distracted part way through writing a post there. Oh well, it just means you get to see what's coming in the next video and I don't need to worry about writing it up later.
Back to top
View user's profile Send private message
Vulgalour



Joined: 08 May 2018
Posts: 473
Location: Kent

PostPosted: Tue Oct 26, 2021 3:16 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Here's the video for the second half of the above write-up. Goes into a little bit more detail.

https://youtu.be/_ZS1Q_47ubk
Back to top
View user's profile Send private message
Vulgalour



Joined: 08 May 2018
Posts: 473
Location: Kent

PostPosted: Tue Nov 23, 2021 4:30 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

New progress update video for you today. This time, it's the first part of the new wiring going in, a job that proved rather more difficult than anticipated. We also take a look at some of the construction techniques and condition of the rear end.

https://youtu.be/90sNU4_Kv34

A words and pictures update will be made later this week for those that prefer that.
Back to top
View user's profile Send private message
Vulgalour



Joined: 08 May 2018
Posts: 473
Location: Kent

PostPosted: Fri Nov 26, 2021 3:19 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

We finally get the first new pieces of wiring into the Lanchester. This is one of those jobs that is a lot easier in theory than in practice, especially when it's a job you're new to. First job was to remove the boot lid. Someone has had this off before, both hinge pins were only in half way so Pat and I assumed that they were the sort of hinges you had to knock the pins out of to get the boot lid off. First one came out without too much hassle. A skinny screwdriver and a hammer were all that were needed. One brass pin removed, and looking just a little bit bent. We'll tidy it up before reinstalling it.




The second pin put up more of a fight. So much so that after ten minutes of solid hammering, application of lubricant, changing of positions... it was clear it wasn't coming out easily. Later on we learned the pin itself was actually bent.


Of course, it was only after the pin being so stubborn about coming out that we were encouraged to look for hinge fixings and we found the two nuts that are sunk into the wooden frame. Once those were unbolted, the boot came off no bother.


As with many things on this car, the boot lock mechanism is a fairly basic thing. Pat and I aren't sure whether or not there should be a trim over this area. We'll likely make something out of black millboard or similar to match what's already used in the boot since it seems a bit strange to leave this area exposed and there are some vacant holes in the aluminium surround that are in about the right place for fixings that might hold a trim in place.


The boot has been re-wired at some point, badly, and not in the same sort of materials as has been used at the front of the car. Here we've already removed the wiring, but you can see the grommet it should pass through, and the puncture in the aluminium skin that needs dealing with. The aluminium trim on the inside of the boot lid is held on with dozens of tiny once-chrome-plated flathead screws.


Pat and I had spent quite a lot of time trying to figure out what bits of the wiring loom went where. The wiring diagram we have for the car seems accurate except for the colours. The colours of the original loom don't match the new wiring loom, and neither looms match the diagram, so that really slowed us down on figuring out what went where. Additionally, the modified sections don't match the old loom, the new loom, or the diagram. To further confuse matters, the only help provided for the new loom is in the form of a colour key on the website of the company that provided it. There's no indication of which physical section of the new loom is for which section of the car, ie: rear lights, engine bay, dashboard, etc. So there was an awful lot of guesswork involved. One clue was the plastic sleeving on the wiring since this is used in areas where the wiring is both exposed to the elements and in an area it's likely to chafe on metal. Parts of the loom that are just plain cloth wrapped in the black and purple are usually (but not always) interior sections. Here are the new and old sections of the rear lights wiring.


To fit the new wiring, I thought it best to remove the intermediate boot floor. In theory, this should just be a case of undoing some screws and lifting the board out. The rubber mat had thankfully not been glued down and is likely not the original.




There's a small hatch set into the main board, it wasn't clear what this was for at first since even though it's about the size of a battery, the battery lives under the rear seat.


When you look through the hole you see two pressed steel plates with a rubber skirt, this is obviously a part of the floor that's removable for some reason and the rubber skirt is to keep the weather out.


The fixings for the plates were missing and none of the fixings that came with the car were the right sort. Anyway, what's underneath here then?

Ah yes, the fuel tank, or more specifically, the fuel sender. This gives you easy access to the main fuel feed line that starts at the top of the tank and runs all the way down the chassis to the front of the car. It also gives access to the only wire going to the fuel sender. We know the fuel sender works so we didn't disturb any of this at the moment.


We also found out where the occasional smell of fuel was coming from. The large diameter hose that joins the filler neck in the wing to the filler neck of the tank has perished and split. We'll be replacing that before the car hits the road proper.


Next to remove the plywood board. This is held down with quite a few bolts (or are these machine screws?) with cup washers. They all came undone fairly easily. The board required a good tug to get it free and once out it gave much better access to the boot floor proper. The main obstacle to getting the plywood out easily is the millboard that the side hinges bolt to, something I can't remove because the fixings seem to have rusted solid and I can't get heat into them without damaging things. A case of working around them for now.




The awkward thing to remove where the bolts for the spare wheel stops. These are two brackets that are shaped so that your spare wheel doesn't push too far back into the space. My arms are only just long enough to reach to get a tool on the nut on the underside and use a screwdriver on the top side.


All that finally out and we could get a proper look at what was waiting underneath. Honestly, I was expecting quite a lot of rot and mess in here so I was very pleasantly surprised.


The intermediate floor is held in by quite a crude angle iron frame that's welded to the car body. I'm pretty certain this isn't a modification, I've seen plenty of cars of this era with the same sort of boot floor, I've just never seen the underlying structure. The welding is not pretty, but then I get the impression with cars like these that what isn't seen doesn't matter, rather like a glorified kit car.


I did find some suitable screws for the fuel tank cover plates. These were a perfect fit on the thread length and pitch, and even on the button heads, and while crossheads probably aren't 'correct', they do the job. They came from the spare door latches for the Princess.


Then the floor could be tidied and more closely inspected. Happily, all the areas we couldn't see before are really solid. Aside from paint being worn away and effectively flash rusting there's absolutely nothing of concern back here. Everything will be cleaned back, giving some rust treater, and then painted with some black enamel to keep it good before the boot area is reassembled in the future.




Daylight could also be shone on the areas of concern Pat and I did know about. Really, these are the worst bits (that we know of) on the car and because of how simple the shapes are and how good the access is, they held no concerns for me when it comes to repairing them. In the future I shall chop out the rot, weld in (or possibly panel adhesive in) some fresh steel and this will all be sorted. It's far enough away from the wooden framework to not cause me any concern and the steel is substantial enough on this car that I can't see it giving me too much grief. I've welded a BX, so this should be no bother.






Then the momentous occasion of fitting the very first section of brand new wiring. Now, I will point out that when I did this job my welder was not working, otherwise I would have done the welding first. I opted to fit this piece because it's very easy to remove if I have to and should give a really good morale boost given that it should be a nice easy item to complete.


I spent a little bit of time with a file tidying up the screws that hold the P clips in place, a couple of the slots had got a little chipped when removing them.


I then checked what grommets had been provided with the loom and found out there were only two very large ones. I'd later learn these were for the bulkhead. No grommets are provided to replace the four required in the boot. This was one of the items that really annoyed me with this loom, they're so cheap it would have been nice just to have had a couple provided as a courtesy. Instead, I had to go and get some since I had none in that were suitable.


Then it was just a case of offering up the P clip behind the angle iron frame after threading them onto the wire, push the bolt through from the bumper side, and screw the nut on from the boot side. Took no time at all to get this section installed.




Pat was then free to help with the interior wiring instalation. Initially I attempted the sensible thing of carefully pulling the new wiring through with the strings I'd carefully run when removing the old wiring. It was tough going, the new loom didn't want to go through that easily, and then one of the strings broke. It took a while before Pat and I finally figured out that the new loom won't actually pass through the guide holes in the frame of the car in the same way the old wiring came out. I'll explain why that is later in this post. What we ended up having to do instead was install the wiring in the cabin in a very strange way.

You have to start in the middle. The hole for the original wiring in the headlining needed to be opened out a bit, then the wiring for the passenger side semaphore could be fed through first, blindly finding the guide holes in the frame, until you reach the metal section just behind and above the B pillar. There's a hole that runs diagonally down and forwards through the wooden frame that allows the wires to then emerge above the semaphore.




You then have to feed the entire rest of the loom that runs all the way into the boot, through the small hole where the interior light lives. This is a chore. One spur will follow the same sort of route to the semaphore on the driver's side as it did on the passenger's side. The other long run then has to be fed through the guide holes in the roof frame, which is metal, all the way over the top of the rear door and behind the trim panel alongside the rear seat. Pat did this, I'd lost my patience with burning my hand on the roof (it was a very hot day when we did this job).






Feeding the section down through the gap between the body and the seat was very difficult, it took us a very long time. It would definitely have been easier to do this with the seat, headlining, and trim removed. However, since we want to keep as much of the original materials as possible, removing the headlining was too risky. If we damaged it we would likely have to replace the whole thing and while I have the skill to do that, it was something we wanted to avoid. This was the price we paid for that. With all of that run, I treated myself to installing the cleaned interior light (more on that in a future update), ready to be wired up later.


Getting the wiring through the tiny gap and guide hole in the frame hidden down the side of the seat took Pat and I more time than we care to think about. It was a deeply unpleasant job. Once done, the wiring then just needs to be run behind the millboard trim that the side hinges bolt into and it's done.




Amazingly, the headlining didn't stretch or tear, it's remarkably robust despite appearances. That meant I could tack it back into place using the same fine tacks Pat and I used when putting the door cards back together. It felt a bit weird nailing interior into the wooden frame of the car, but that's how it was done so that's how we're redoing it. There's another trim that goes over the top of this that needs longer tacks, a job for another update.




So why was it so hard to run the wiring? This is down to the new loom itself. The original wiring is constructed so that it's the wire, a cloth braid, and then a varnish of some sort to act as insulation. The new wiring is the wire, a plastic coating, and then a decorative braid. As a result, the new wiring ends up fractionally thicker for each wire. That's not a problem until you get to the junctions and spurs where the wire is wrapped. The new wiring is less flexible and bulkier and because the decorative braid is raw, it grabs the wooden parts of the frame that it goes through where the old varnished wiring would slide smoothly. As a result, you can't pass sections of the new wiring through the old guide holes without opening them up a bit, something that's easy enough to do if the car is stripped down to bare bones, but impossible when you're working around interior trim as we are. It's another courtesy item that would have been nice to be warned of with the kit since it does mean this new wiring isn't actually OEM replacement. I shouldn't have to modify the structure of my car to fit something that's supposed to be like-for-like.


Speaking of like-for-like replacement that isn't, no spare bullet connectors are provided, that's something you have to buy extra. At least one bullet connector has become partially detached during the process of installation and in a couple of places there aren't bullet connectors where there should be. The semaphores require one bullet connector each that isn't there, and the rear lights are the same. While the three connections on the rear lights only require one bullet connector, it seems remiss that it isn't on the loom. I didn't have any in stock, couldn't order any for the same day, so I didn't get the rear lights connected up, sadly.


What I could do was install the new grommets I bought in an actual shop (the novelty) so at least the wiring could be kept nice and safe, ready to be connected properly later. The old grommets were pretty dead.




So far our experience with the re-wiring has not been a fun one. I'm very glad we didn't also decide to make the wiring ourselves, it would have been a nightmare. The loom we bought is very nice, it's just annoying that there's a lack of practical courtesy with a few small items included like various grommets and spare connectors, especially for the price. The total lack of any labelling on the components is also annoying. Some of this is because it's the first time Pat and I have tackled a job like this, some of it is because it seems to be industry standard to cut these corners. Personally, I'd like to see the company do better, especially since they're selling to the DIY market as well as to the restoration trade.
Back to top
View user's profile Send private message
bjacko



Joined: 28 Oct 2013
Posts: 351
Location: Melbourne Australia

PostPosted: Fri Nov 26, 2021 6:53 am    Post subject: Wiring Reply with quote

We used to use a special oil for assisting wiring through tight spaces made by Hellerine from memory (1957). It worked very well.
Back to top
View user's profile Send private message Visit poster's website
Bitumen Boy



Joined: 26 Jan 2012
Posts: 1733
Location: Above the snow line in old Monmouthshire

PostPosted: Fri Nov 26, 2021 2:12 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Actually my first inclination for rewiring a simple old car without electronic nonsense would be to buy cable etc and do it from scratch, knowing how the factory looms are cut only just long enough and like to take convoluted routes to "economise" on cable and fittings. Plus if I were doing it to something like my old Herald there would be a few non-factory things to accommodate, and I'd like some fuses, and...

You lads have been very brave in taking on this Lanchester and it's great to see results Smile
Back to top
View user's profile Send private message
Bitumen Boy



Joined: 26 Jan 2012
Posts: 1733
Location: Above the snow line in old Monmouthshire

PostPosted: Fri Nov 26, 2021 2:13 pm    Post subject: Re: Wiring Reply with quote

bjacko wrote:
We used to use a special oil for assisting wiring through tight spaces made by Hellerine from memory (1957). It worked very well.


I think you can still get tallow for doing the job, but it's not exactly vegan friendly Laughing
Back to top
View user's profile Send private message
Ray White



Joined: 02 Dec 2014
Posts: 6285
Location: Derby

PostPosted: Fri Nov 26, 2021 2:25 pm    Post subject: Re: Wiring Reply with quote

Bitumen Boy wrote:
bjacko wrote:
We used to use a special oil for assisting wiring through tight spaces made by Hellerine from memory (1957). It worked very well.


I think you can still get tallow for doing the job, but it's not exactly vegan friendly Laughing


I use tallow frequently. It is a most useful thing to have in the workshop. It doesn't react with rubber grommets etc. It is ideal for tapping and reaming.
Back to top
View user's profile Send private message Send e-mail
Vulgalour



Joined: 08 May 2018
Posts: 473
Location: Kent

PostPosted: Tue Jan 18, 2022 5:55 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

It's been a while. Here's another Lanchester video.

https://youtu.be/GQYtdJij6Gk

I'll do the words-and-pictures update in a few days time.
Back to top
View user's profile Send private message
Vulgalour



Joined: 08 May 2018
Posts: 473
Location: Kent

PostPosted: Thu Jan 20, 2022 8:48 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Quite a long update this one, just to warn you in advance. Lots of images to illustrate what was being done. Hopefully this will help if you're working on a LD10 or anything of similar vintage since this car is apparently fairly conventionally wired for its age and construction type.

Pat and I had spent some time figuring out what wires went were. Some of it was more obvious than others and, had we been working with a car that was a clean slate, I imagine this whole process would have gone much smoother. Easiest item was the wiper motor wires. The grommet disintegrated which is why it's not there at the moment.


Much of working out the dashboard portion of the loom was a case of laying it down and seeing where the wires lined up with things. Because almost nothing on our car was original in this area and we had no references to work from to tell us what went where, it was a case of applying the logic of wiring colours and lengths. Once we had the wiper motor figured out, the oil pressure sender made most sense next.


Normally it looks like this runs through the P clip next to the fuel filter. The filter is a later addition and not original and to slacken off the P clip to feed the wire through you need to remove the filter since that's the only way to get to the bolt for the clip. Removing the filter is a two person job, or a one person job if you've got longer arms than I do.


I haven't connected anything yet because this was the first dry run of putting the wires through. I wanted to know routing was correct before committing to fixing things in place. Next up was the coil wires and this one is a little confusing. There's a yellow and a white, which seems correct for coil, and the length is good too. However, on our car it had one wire to the loom from the coil, and another from the coil to the distributor. The new loom you can't do that unless you're supposed to split the white wire so that it can run loom-coil-distributor. I didn't know (and still don't yet), so I just left the wires loose for now.


I then got some fresh grommets (these weren't provided with the new wiring) to put in the bulkhead where the new wires were going through.


Then it was time to try and figure out how the wiring in the engine bay linked up to the wiring in the car. There's no split at the bulkhead, so all of the wires in this section of the harness has to be fed through the relevant holes in the correct way. I didn't know what that was. I'd looked at as many photographs as I could find of other LD10s and that wasn't many. I trawled YouTube to try and find any videos showing this part of the engine bay and again, barely any information at all. So I was flying a bit blind on this one. I already knew the new loom was likely to be difficult to thread through the original holes purely because of the extra bulk it would have, but I didn't know how it physically routed. I guessed that because the bulk of the wiring junctions was on the inside of the car it probably made most sense to thread the harness through from inside the car into the engine bay. That way, in theory, I'd have the lowest chance of damaging the new harness. This would prove to be incorrect.

I began my journey by threading some of the harness through the top left hole in the bulkhead, and some through the hole that the temperature sender capillary tube and the speedo cable went through, facilitating the removal of the temperature sender (this still hasn't been refitted due to fragility, it's stored safe in the house out of harm's way). This was because I thought some of the wiring made sense to go through there because of how the new harness lined up with the bulkhead holes. This was incorrect. I also learned that the provided grommets were very difficult to thread onto the harness, however you went about it.




The more items I then tried to line up, the less this seemed to be the correct route so I had another go, putting the bulkier junction through the top left hole this time. This was also incorrect, but only partially.


There was a lot of head scratching and then, finally, I found a reference image from an Australian auction. It was a tiny blurry little thumbnail but it showed a car with original wiring intact and routed as per factory. This meant I could see that pretty much all the wiring went through only the top left hole of the bulkhead. What took me a while after that to figure out is that you have to feed the whole harness from the engine side, through the top left hole, and into the car. This is the only way to get all of the wiring where it belongs. It's still not that easy since it's a cumbersome thing that wants to snag on everything, but had I known that from the start it would have saved me a lot of time.


The reason you thread the wiring through that way is so that the junction to the next section sits about in line with the top of the steering column. There are two runs of wiring that go along the steering column, one that goes through the inside of it for the indicator switch and horn, and another that is held to the outside of the column that goes from the bulkhead down to the chassis. The big mass of wires with no connectors go to the voltage regulator (it's going to be fun working out exactly which of those goes where, I'm sure), and when you're inside the car, the wiring should sit up near the top of the bulkhead held in place with P clips. As long term viewers will remember, the wiring the car came to us with was loosely draped over the heater.

The wiring that runs down the steering column exits the car through a hole in the inner wing at the steering box. A pair of yellow wires spur off up to the horns, and the rest of the wiring is for the lights.




This wiring then runs under the front of the car before just the spur for the horns comes back in through a hole in the passenger inner wing.


On the other side of the passenger wing (wheel side, rather than engine side), the wiring goes through a box section to keep it secure. One branch goes up through the top of the box section along the wing support rail. There's a P clip in the top of the brace the holds down the wiring. One wire goes to the sidelight, the other two go to the headlight.


When we got the car, the mix of original and modified wiring was cable tied to the underside of the radiator support. I suspect there's supposed to be three P clips where those bolts and big washers are to hold it in place instead.


With all that routed, I could take a step back and a bit of a think about where I was at with it. This area was looking more like it should, and even though things aren't connected yet, it looked a lot tidier than when it arrived. I felt like I stood a chance to work through this logically now at least.


For the lights at the front, the single red wire goes to the sidelights, pushes up through the centre of the bolt that holds it to the wing and out into the light unit. We've got to get the new dual function LEDs for in here, and figure out what we're doing about how we earth them properly since reinstated the old repair of a thick twisted copper wire isn't really that reliable.


For the headlights, it's a yellow and a green wire.


Going from the box section on the inner wing on the driver's side, you can follow the wiring back from the lights, through the inner wing, and into the engine bay.




It then branches up to the steering column to join the dashboard section of harness. There's a spur off for the dynamo and starter motor, and then there's a branch that goes down into a closed box section of the chassis. You can see a random blue-ish wire here from a previous re-wire.


I now had as much of the front as I could figure out the next thing to do was to head to the back of the car again. The only thing in the middle of the car was the brake switch wiring but to get to that I'd have to remove the wiring that runs along the drivers side chassis rail. I couldn't do that until I'd disconnected the fuel tank and figured out how the wiring joined up to that and the wiring for the lights in the boot. With the rear wheel off and the car on an axle stand it's pretty easy to see everything you need to get to.

To the left in this shot is the fuel tank, I pointing at the chassis crosstube the wiring goes around (more on this in a moment, to the right of my hand is what I believe is the rear brake rod actuator, and ahead of that is off course the differential and rear axle.


Where I'm pointing now is the fuel tank sender, which works so we shan't be disturbing it, and that needs to be disconnected. Happily, there's an access hatch in the boot for this very purpose. It does seem a little odd that the sender is on the opposite side of the tank to the main wiring, but perhaps there's a sensible reason for it being nearer the filler neck?


I wanted to know how the wiring actually ran to the bullet connecters that were tucked into the corner of the boot, pulled out under the car here since everything was being unthreaded. This part of the wiring is original, so this is what Lanchester installed back in 1951. It's very brittle and stiff for the most part.


I'd had some confusion with the new harness in that there was a very long run of wiring that contained three wires with bullet connectors on the ends. From the colours, it looked related to the lighting. However, to my knowledge up until this point, I thought there was only one run of wiring down the chassis and I already had that accounted for. Now I was at the point I was dismantling things, I could see what that wiring was for. The old wiring runs inside the chassis rail, and then loops over the crossmember that runs between the fuel tank and the axle. It has a plastic-y sheath over it where it sits outside the chassis, so it's not immediately apparent that it's wiring.


What I didn't know is there's a second run of wiring that loops underneath the same crossmember, also with a plastic-y sheath covering it. This does a good job of keeping the bulkiness to a minimum and makes for a very tidy routing given the design of the chassis.


The other thing I hadn't realised when trying to find the wiring previously is that because I'd been looking in the wrong place, I hadn't seen the two runs of wiring that are clamped to the inside of the chassis rail. There are a few braces along the length of the chassis that have sort of leaf shaped holes in them that guide the wiring, and clamps at intervals that keep it in place. It's all very dark under there.


That figured out, I could remove the fuel sender wire. There's an access hatch for this in the boot covered by a pair of pressed steel plates with a rubber gasket that go around the filler neck. If the intermediate wooden floor is still installed, there's a hatch cut in that too that you can remove.


The wire has an eyelet on the end and is simply slid over a threaded shaft and secured with a nut. Once it's removed, I tied some string on to it so I could unthread it. I found that the wire is held to the rear cross tube with two large metal band clips and the centre rear bracket for the fuel tank.




Then it's a case of finding any tools that fit the Imperial fixings to undo them. I only had two spanners the correct size, and fortunately the right shape too. I was quite surprised at how easily the nut and bolt came undone, I fully expected them to be rusted solid.


With the wire unthreaded and the string taking its place I could then figure out what was going on with the rest of the wiring at the end of the chassis. I also learned at this point that the fuel tank had to come out because otherwise you can't actually move any of the wiring. It's not that the fuel tank is pressing on the wiring, just that there simply isn't enough space to get in with your hands to move the wiring out of the chassis.


That meant disconnecting the rotten filler neck connecting hose, something that will be easy and sensible to replace. That also gives us access to the worst of the rust on the back end which is just this simple bit of fabrication needed to the inner arch. Duct tape over the filler neck to prevent dirt going in the tank since I can't put the cap on with that being attached to the other part of the filler neck.


The tank is held into the car with one bolt in the middle at the back through the rear chassis crossmember, and two going through the chassis crossmember the wiring loops around. Again, the other bolts came undone surprisingly easily and the tank was then ready to remove.


Or so I thought. I found out very quickly that the exhaust needs to be disconnected to allow the tank to drop out. I was time conscious when I did this job, not least because it kept suddenly raining very heavily without warning, so I just moved the tank aside and later I'll drop the exhaust so the tank can be removed and repainted properly. At least I could get to the wiring and start figuring out how that came out. There was a nut and bolt going through the end of the chassis which I'm still not entirely sure of the purpose for. There appeared to be a wire going to it, and there's a stub of what might be an auxilliary light under the car in this sort of area, but no switch or wiring for it anywhere in the car.


There was a lot of fiddly and dirty work attaching strings and persuading decades old wiring and dirt to let go and come free. I wore eye protection throughout this job because I like my eyes and don't have a spare set. I should have also put something over my ears to stop rust and dirt going in them, it was one of those jobs. Eventually I had the wiring out and I had to remove the brittle old plastic-y sheathing that kept bunching up and jamming the wiring as I was trying to remove it from the chassis.


It's not very easy to unthread the wiring from the back of the chassis because all you have for access are these little holes. Even with the wiring clips unbolted in the open section of the chassis, it was still slow going. Because I also had to pull the string through, I had to be careful not to snag things, and because I was dodging the sudden downpours and trying to keep the camera safe, it was a bit of a chore to do.


The wiring is held to the chassis with B clips (that's what shape they are, like a P but two bumps) located under each of the bodymount/outriggers. It's a nut and bolt rather than a captive nut, so they are a bit fiddly to remove. Once you've removed the clips, you then have to make sure as you pull the wire out it doesn't get jammed in the narrow part of the vertical guide holes (not the same as those circular holes in a previous photo) in the chassis, and even more careful of the string which is hard to keep out of the narrowest pinch point.




Eventually, I'd freed the wiring as far as the B pillar, I had strings run to preserve the wiring route, and was ready to work my way forward for the last bit of the old wiring removal. That will have to wait for a future update, this one is quite long enough.
Back to top
View user's profile Send private message
Rick
Site Admin


Joined: 27 Apr 2005
Posts: 22429
Location: UK

PostPosted: Fri Jan 21, 2022 10:59 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

Interesting, thanks once again for adding an update. As I've probably said already, this thread is an object lesson to anyone wondering how much work re-commissioning an old car can involve.

RJ
_________________
Rick - Admin
Home:https://www.oldclassiccar.co.uk
Videos:https://www.youtube.com/user/oldclassiccarRJ/videos
OCC & classic car merchandise (Austin, Ford ++):
https://www.redbubble.com/people/OldClassicCar/shop
Back to top
View user's profile Send private message
Bitumen Boy



Joined: 26 Jan 2012
Posts: 1733
Location: Above the snow line in old Monmouthshire

PostPosted: Fri Jan 21, 2022 2:16 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Well done, it's not easy doing fiddly jobs like this underneath a car on stands.
Back to top
View user's profile Send private message
Vulgalour



Joined: 08 May 2018
Posts: 473
Location: Kent

PostPosted: Fri Jan 21, 2022 2:45 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

The goal is very much to share the info, this sort of thing is very often glossed over, particularly with older cars. I'm always grateful for folks that document how the jobs have gone, it's helped so much understanding how to tackle these jobs.
Back to top
View user's profile Send private message
Display posts from previous:   
Post new topic   Reply to topic    Classic cars forum & vehicle restoration. Forum Index -> All our old cars, vans, lorries etc All times are GMT + 1 Hour
Goto page Previous  1, 2, 3 ... 27, 28, 29 ... 38, 39, 40  Next
Page 28 of 40

 
Jump to:  
You cannot post new topics in this forum
You cannot reply to topics in this forum
You cannot edit your posts in this forum
You cannot delete your posts in this forum
You cannot vote in polls in this forum
OCC Merch link
Forum T&C


php BB powered © php BB Grp.