Where did the time go today? It was great to work with an open garage at 12 C° and let a bit of sun and light in. After a good (overdue) clean-up of the garage I finished the dashboard connectors. The EconoSeal connectors had the drawback that it is a bit fiddly to a get the individual pins out again necessary. Even though I documented all pins and connectors – it was good to double-check. I need to thank an old friend here. He (Steve) has no idea that his maybe somewhat stupid “double-check if the door is locked” mantra from 30+ years ago has left an everlasting impact on me. After correcting a documentation mistake the two 13pin & 6pin EconoSeals were good to go.
What I certainly need is a more detail-aware follower base. People that look at the pictures and leave comments like “WTF Tim!! You installed the connector for the warning lights from the wrong side!!!” Getting the pins out with the smallest screwdriver I had took a good amount of time. Eventually I got this sorted as well. With the old dashboard wired up and in it was time for first tests. Using the wire tester to go through each circuit takes time. A few small corrections were necessary. I wish I could say that I am confident to hook up the battery tomorrow and test everything. Truth is – I am nervous as f&%$ that something might go wrong.
During today’s wiring process I also put together a new part of the loom. Brake, reserves switch, digital speedo sensor and seat heating needed to go it. Originally the rear loom branch for the brake and reserve cable runs in the front of the passengers-seat crossmember. As I will move the seats back 5 cm – the crossmember will be visible most of the time. I certainly don’t want to have visible cables in this area. Therefore, I decided to run the cables pretty much in the middle of the seat. Therefore, the new seat supports got a 25 by 25 mm cut-out in the middle. Sounds easy – but is a two-hour job when also adding the 38mm drill holes on the side of the supports. During the entire cabling and wiring process I sticked to the BS-AU7 coloring code. So, it felt like a crime to use lightgreen/lightgreen-brown instead of green/green-brown for the reserve switch. It was a concession I had to make in order to somehow manage the T-5 deadline. But now the seats are hooked up as well.
The 25€ metal 38mm drill-bit from Amazon I bought to drill out the seat supports is quite alright. But the 15 holes I cut so far were hard on my Bosch drill-press. The motor stopped a couple of times and the smell of (overheated?) engine was awful. Back in the garage I noticed that the seats require M8 bolts to be screwed to the supports. I only had stainless M6 around – they need to will do for now. Alignment of the seat supports did not work out right away. After I noticed that I forgot to refit the indicator and wiper stalks to the steering column another problem surfaced. I cannot reuse the old dashboard for next week. As the steering column is now centered – the dash needs to accommodate this.
After I got home, I was delighted to read the generous offer from Owen – a member of the talkmorgan forum. He has a replacement escutcheon of the light switch. Looking forward to get to the UK again as soon as travel is possible again.
Fixing C6622 
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