The All New, New "What have you done to your Bay today" thread.

New dash bulbs

The one on the left is an original filament bulb. Centre is an LED that I tried a few months back, right is the latest. The centre one is only slightly brighter then the original so wasn't good enough. The latest one is warm white like it should be and is dimmable. I've only done the 3 instrument bulbs and the difference is amazing.
https://www.classiccarleds.co.uk/co...dashboard-upgrade-bulbs-t5-74-various-colours

 

The previous PO or some nefarious daft mechanic twisted one of my bumper mounts taking the bumper off, probably while it was on a ramp, as it really was well out; it's been on my list of things to sort for a while.

My local fabricator did the serious work and this weekend I did some more fine tuning and alignment to the overall the look; it's actually quite therapeutic

Fingers crossed your bump will bash out fine, Rich.

 

Yes those cheapo LEDs are pretty dim..
But the three LEDs in series style will tend to flicker a lot with e g. indicators flashing etc.

 

Should be ok. The towbar brackets for the bumper are only skinny things, so should respond to a good thumping.

 

I've not given them much of a road test but there's no trace of a flicker Mike, indicators, hazards flashing, high beam, low beam, dimmed, full on. Nothing. I will report back if they start to play up.

The cheepo LED's I initially fitted to high beam and indicators and they weren't right, they did flicker. I've gone back to filaments for those.

 

Took the engine hatch hinge apart by drilling out the pin - which is actually 4mm diameter across the centre which is used as a rivet with the ends expanded to 6mm diameter.
Started with a 6mm drill, and then discovered the pin in the middle of the hinge had long ago rusted solid then been twisted and snapped both sides, so the pin was actually two ends pressing into dimples.
Not surprising it was wonky and rapidly degrading .
Used a 6mm stainless roll pin.
Clearanced the middle bit so the roll pin could move more freely. Over did it a bit because the ends of the roll pin close up as you push it through, the centre part less so.

Tried to drill out the wreckage of the screws going into the rear panel - and the drill skipped off and knackered one of them, so drilled it out to 8mm for rivnnuts . Noticed the little fishplates that were originally tapped to take the screws look like you could slide them out , so maybe I will drill and tap some 1.5mm steel strip and put it back in in place of the rivnuts. ..
Had to grind clearance for the flanges on the rivnuts. The flanges are slightly proud of the steel panel, so will need to be sanded slightly to stop the hinge rocking as you operate the hatch ..
Already an improvement, the hatch is slightly higher and further out at the top on the right..
And I will be able to use the bus next weekend..

 

I would expect it the other way round , the three-LED design is more sensitive to supply voltage, because it has three LED forward voltage drops subtracted from the 12 volts. But because it is brighter to start with, the dimming might be less noticeable.
I ended up with the middle ground - single high brightness flat LED chips with single resistors, slightly more expensive than the clear LEDs.
The high beam LED should have been OK, the indicators need a non-polarity sensitive bulb to work in all cases.

 

To be fair, the high beam didn't flicker, that was the indicator bulb. The high beam was just too bright.

 

Started it up for the first time in a while, after a couple of attempts it started and I checked the battery charge on my BMS, all seemed good, so shut it off until my back is slightly less *****ed and I can hopefully drop the engine to give the engine / engine bay a tidy up, need to fit a new inlet manifold and possibly paint the engine bay too.

 

Get yourself a nice new Wolfsberg West hinge.

 

That would be too easy

 

Even the stock filament bulbs were too bright - there should be a loose piece of clear plastic sheet painted black with a clear square in it between the plastic window with the symbols printed on it and the bulb for the main beam indicator bulb. These easily fall out when you take the instrument cluster apart .

 

Too late now, but I had 100% success removing these particular screws by building up enough weld on the head (short high power bursts) to get mole grips on. Scrape inside the X but nowhere else to attract the weld there and aim right down inside that X - lots of power for the first couple of dabs - 120-150A, then turn it down to build up for the grips. The heat cracks the rust - usually finger tight after adding the weld stalk.
Here are some pictures so you can see exactly what's what. Yeah - rivnuts are not really the answer as you found out they push the lid down too low.

 

Started mine today. Let it run for a bit.

 

I had to do the hinge on the stay side urgently as it was getting loose.. I am going to take a bit more time the other side. I think the sliding fishplates can actually be slid out and replaced too.
I will try the welder idea the other side see what happens.

 

For the indicator dash bulb I put in a bridge rectifier..

 

The plates won't slide out easily because the screw holes are formed to be double thickness for more thread and to capture the plates. You can see this on my fuzzy photos. You could drill a larger hole through and wipe that out but a replacement would only have half the thread depth.

 

Released the handbrake so it sits on chocks - to avoid a scratchy screechy start to the next exciting run to the tip.....

 

It’s taken 2 days to separate and understand the main loom wiring through to the engine bay. Needed to be done so it could be carefully pulled through this monstrosity.



Prior to that it all had to pass through this grommetless, not even round, hole in the corner of a butchered, not even painted, crossmember.


Remarkably only 2 wires look like their insulation has been nicked (it did all still have a sleeve around the loom - thankfully).


www.transmission610.com

 

Any idea if using Kopex type galvanised flexi-steel conduit to house the loom externally instead of threading it through the chassis rails would work?