May 2007 Electrical and more Upgrades
Progress has been slow, once I got involved with fitting the chrome trim days passed with seemingly little progress. Having to use many repro parts makes it even harder - I thought this would be the most rewarding part of the restoration and it is when you see the car 'taking shape', but it has been a challenge.
One aspect that went very easily was the rewiring, the new loom fell into place and apart from adding a few additional earth wires it all worked first time. During the strip-down I spent a couple of days making sketches and took plenty of pictures - all were invaluable.
The instrument voltage regulator is a very 1960's design - a vibrating bi-metal strip with a heating element. The output is roughly 10 volts and is used for the fuel and water temperature gauges. Although solid-state replacements are available it was easy and cheap to use a L78S10 IC in the original casing. This IC only works for negative earth.
Halogen headlights, bigger cooling fan, modern electronics and electrical power steering (more on that later) mean the dynamo has to be replaced with an alternator - this one gives an output of around 70 amps. As is usual with an alternator the electrical system has been changed to negative earth.
Fitting an alternator makes the ammeter almost redundant as the small needle deflection is of little practical use, so I have replaced it with a period style voltmeter.
The new fan and cowl kit works very well and shifts a lot of air, I much prefer it to the replacements which rely on pushing nails through the radiator core. The installation instructions advise modifying the existing brackets but I found it simpler to make new ones from 3mm steel.
I couldn't resist the '123 Ignition' distributor - it has so much to offer compared to my worn-out Lucas unit. It was cheaper than a rebuilt distributor, has fewer moving parts, produces a stronger spark, has spark balancing and 16 different advance curves. It was very easy to set up and the rebuilt engine fired-up first turn of the key.
First find TDC, I didn't want to trust the timing marks but they were 'spot on'. Power stroke is indicated by the cam lobe pointing to the outside of the car. Then just rotate the distributor until the internal green LED illuminates and tighten the clamp, the distributor has 10 degrees of idle advance built in. I have yet to try it on the road but first impressions are good.
The car would have had a submersible fuel pump but this has been removed by a previous owner and a blanking plated with pickup tube and filter fitted, possibly from a later car. As I'm not concerned about originality in this area a Facet solid-state pump has been fitted inside the right wing, a similar position to that used in the 4.2 litre cars.
The original Lucas washer pump is very feeble by today's standards so it has been replaced by a modern pump of 30mm diameter. By making a hole in the bottle cap the electrical connections are covered by the old motor lid and isolated from the washer fluid. The pump is held in position by a cable tie both sides of the cap and silicone rubber. Ideally a self priming pump should be used.
Most of the blue dome shaped diffusers in the gauges have melted particularly in the small instruments. The new voltmeter and oil gauge come without diffusers and they are no longer available. A solution is to use Vitrea 160, a paint for glassware which hardens with heat so it's ideal for bulbs. I found the frosted blue gave good results.
After driving in the dark a few times I found the instrument illumination to be insufficient with this modification so LED lamps were tried. These were much better and although the U987 type are only available in white a small dab of Vitrea gave a blue tint. The three BA7 lamps for the legend strip are available in blue. Both LED types are available from Ultraleds.
