When I bought this car, the plan was to swap the U/S spec engine and wiring loom with those from my first ever car. Initial plan was to do the swap in the Carnaval holiday. But due to several small but rather annoying set backs mainly with the wiring I will be pleased if the new engine is in by the end off this month.
While dismantling the car everything went fine. The problems really started while removing the Continental spec loom from the donor car. Whilst removing it I found out that the wiper switch was broken. No problem I thought, I have several 2nd hand and new ones lying around. Only problem was that the broken switch had a female connector while all other switches I have, have male connectors. So I had the choice, changing the connector on one off the switches or the loom. I settled for the third option, a short adaptor cable with two male connectors;
Getting the loom back in was the easiest part. I tied a bit of rope to the old loom before I pulled it out off the front wing. Getting it back in was simply a matter off pulling on the rope gently.
Of course something had to go wrong. In this case the thread on one off the earth points behind the headlamps turned out to be gone. Off course I only found that out when I had replaced the headlamp units, which limits access to the earth point from below!
Then came the ignition switch. On UK and Euro spec cars they have 4 connecting wires. The U/S switch has 7! This meant removing the lock (always nice undoing break-bolts) and changing the switches. Nothing special but rather time consuming. Especially if you planned to do something else instead!
Getting the loom back in was the easiest part. I tied a bit of rope to the old loom before I pulled it out off the front wing. Getting it back in was simply a matter off pulling on the rope gently.
Of course something had to go wrong. In this case the thread on one off the earth points behind the headlamps turned out to be gone. Off course I only found that out when I had replaced the headlamp units, which limits access to the earth point from below!
Then came the ignition switch. On UK and Euro spec cars they have 4 connecting wires. The U/S switch has 7! This meant removing the lock (always nice undoing break-bolts) and changing the switches. Nothing special but rather time consuming. Especially if you planned to do something else instead!
Next problem was the heater unit. The flap guiding the air to the screen wasn't working properly. It turned out that some mounting brackets at the front off the heater had never never installed (see picture below). As a result the flap was to low, touching the dashboard bracket and thus opening only very slightly. Some home made brackets solved this.
To end it all one off the two connectors from the rear loom on the U/S spec cars has one extra connection. Again I thought no problem, take a spare connector block and put five off the six wires in matching the colours with the connector from the main loom. Sadly though U/S spec cars have some different wire colours. And the wiring diagram wasn't clear on this one or clearly wrong. Using my multimeter I eventually found out which cable went were ... hopefully!
But at least the dash can go back in now, or there is light at the end of the tunnel;
To end it all one off the two connectors from the rear loom on the U/S spec cars has one extra connection. Again I thought no problem, take a spare connector block and put five off the six wires in matching the colours with the connector from the main loom. Sadly though U/S spec cars have some different wire colours. And the wiring diagram wasn't clear on this one or clearly wrong. Using my multimeter I eventually found out which cable went were ... hopefully!
But at least the dash can go back in now, or there is light at the end of the tunnel;
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