Over the past few days I have been busying myself with the finishing touches for the boot area wiring. This consisted mainly of cleaning the last connectors of the body harness and refurbishing the licence plate harness. With the (meanwhile) correct tools, the remaining connectors of both harnesses could be taken apart and cleaned. And were necessary they were replaced.
The same applied for the PVC cover of the number plate
light harness. Removing the two pin connector block made this an equally easy
job.
But of course something had to throw a spanner or two in
the works. In this case the boot light wiring and switch. First problem that
arose were the wires that should go towards the switch and boot light. One
connection (to the switch) was easy. But I couldn’t remember were the other
(purple/red) wire should connect to. Luckily I had a TR7 at hand to check this.
And that clearly showed why I couldn’t remember were said wire connected to!
So the connector in question was duly covered with a piece of heat shrink tubing.
And that brought me to the main issue. The boot light
switch. A few months ago I had fitted a later model switch, because the early
round type was no longer available. But that needed a different connector. This
would be convenient as it would allow me to renew the PVC cover for these wires
too! But while I was studying this area in the ’76 car and comparing it with the
DHC I noticed something was “wrong”. Spot the difference!
Clearly there is no aperture for a light there. The opening
where the boot light is situated on later cars, is far too big for the boot
light that is listed in my parts manuals and that is fitted to my two other
cars (1980 and 1981) The strange thing is that in the early (1975-1978) parts
manuals there is no mention of this light not being fitted to early cars. It
seems that the earlier cars didn’t have a boot lid light fitted. Which is
pretty strange as the body shell has a small bracket welded in for an early
(round type) switch. A quick search on the internet didn’t provide an
unambiguous answer. But it looks to me that the very early TR7’s didn’t have a
boot light fitted. And that is when I stumbled upon a correct early boot light
switch for the cars bracket!
Not yet decided what to do here, though I am toying with the idea of fitting a period aftermarket light. Or fabricate an adapter plate to cover the larger hole in the boot lid and use the boot light I prepared earlier? Choices!
So I switched my attention to some vital parts for the rear
light clusters. This meant searching through my stock of (used) bulb holders
and giving the chosen ones a good clean:
And searching the stock in the attic for the corresponding
bulbs. I bought these when I restored ‘t Kreng in the mid 90’s of the previous
century. And so far none of them has failed. So no need to spend money on
modern replacements.
Final search was for a pair of bumper cover retainer plates
(ZKC2251). These will be used to locate the base of the rear light covers to
the boot floor.
And as I use this blog as a reference source when
working on my cars, I thought it a good idea to draw a few simple diagrams, showing how
the various wires connect to the rear light units and the tank sender unit.
To be continued …
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