Elan S4 rebuild - my story chapter 2

[pharriso]

One of the things we cant figure out is the connection block attached to the headlight vacuum switch. I cant seem to find this in any documentation. Can anyone provide some insight to this?

DSC07330.jpg

Glenn, all is explained at http://www.lotuselan.net/forums/lotus-electrical-f38/late-federal-fail-safe-headlight-wiring-t30133.html

Your picture shows the micro switches on the base of the head light switch.

You will probably have to add the black with red tracer wire as the factory did (i.e. not bound in the loom.)

Merry Christmas to you & all!

[Certified Lotus]

Phil, should have known you had the answer nice drawing! I just printed it and brought it out to the garage so I can reference it when I go back to the wiring solutions.

[Certified Lotus]

An eight hour day figuring out electrical issues and retracing the wiring one more time.......or was it two more times.......argh........ended up being three more times.

Deep into the wiring

We have almost everything traced out and resolved almost everything.........I said almost. The hazard light glows softly even thought the hazard four ways are off and the ignition is off. There is a ground wire that is hot as it arc's when you touch it to metal.

Made a few new jumper wires with the right connectors (although the wrong color wiring). I was going to order the right color coded wire but figured if its more than a few pieces I have to make I'll just order a new dash loom.

Wiring bench

We finally got the four way flashers to work without having to put the turn signal indicator either up or down, the electric windows work, the heater fan has two speeds, all the lights operate, the ignition works without blowing fuses, the handbrake warning light works, we have high and low beam head lights and turn signals.

Drew and I had everything working and started putting the dash back into position while bundling the wiring in the appropriate places. Guess what? As we tried everything it was evident that some wires and connectors had moved and now things didn't function.

We pulled the dash back out and started looking at what might have moved around.

We decided to call it a day and tackle another time with fresh minds. I'm wondering if I should just bite the bullet and order a new dash loom from British Wiring. It's $295 and they are in stock. What I don't know is which loom to order. I have a hybrid car, part S4 and part Sprint. Anyone know what the difference is in dash wiring?

Elan dash pulled out to expose all the wiring

I also need to find the rectangular Lucas flashers (x2) that fit into the metal frames on the dash that hold them in place. I'm using non OEM flashers to get the signal indicators and four way flashers to work, but I'd like to install the originals. Anyone know who has the Lucas versions?

Flasher

Flasher top view

Off subject from wiring, can anyone show me a picture of what the bracket looks like for the bonnet release cable handle? I see it is mounted below the dash, but I cant find a picture of the bracket and don't seem to have one.

It was dark outside when I started this morning and dark when I finished. Had an Organic Samuel Smiths Pale Ale. Now I feel like it was a good day

[CBUEB1771]

One of the things we cant figure out is the connection block attached to the headlight vacuum switch. I cant seem to find this in any documentation. Can anyone provide some insight to this?

Phil has the right answer. Ugh, I had forgotten all about those blasted microswitches. When I first had my +2S the headlamps would routinely fail because the screws mounting the microswitches would back off and the switch bodies would move far enough from the slide valve that the cam would not actuate the switches. I should have taken the time to find a better way of securing the microswitches. Instead I replaced the slide valve with a single switch and relays to control the head lamps and a solenoid valve to switch vacuum to the actuator pots. I know you are aiming for maximum originality so careful Loctiting of the miniature screws may save future annoyance.

[Certified Lotus]

Thanks for the suggestion of loctite for the miniature screws Russ. Added one more "to do" to my ever growing list!

[The Veg]

Should not be a problem https://www.beermenus.com/beers/8111-marston-s-pedigree

One of my favorite beers as well...

Says I can get it at Mellow Mushroom Pizza 249 miles away in Charleston SC, where I can get a 12-oz bottle for...are you sitting down...*$9!*

[Certified Lotus]

I'm off from work this week (mostly, its never really no work entirely) so I decided to drive to British Wiring to pick up my looms. They are only 1 1/2 hours from my house, not a bad drive and it was in the general direction of my Mother so a visit was in order afterwards. In all a good day.

The folks at British Wiring are great and they showed me around their shop with a number of Triumph and MG's being worked on with an Elba in full restoration along with a couple of MGA's. One Aston Martin under cover. Nice shop and it looked well organized.

I had reached out to the PO earlier this week to gain some insight on the wiring of the car. Some new information came through. Seems the wiring looms came from three different cars as various wires were melted or burnt with the new repurposed loom taking care of most of the issues. Mmmmmmmm. After that conversation and not much thought along with a follow up conversation with Drew it was clear to me the wiring was getting replaced. Called British Wiring to confirm they had what I needed (a Sprint harness for dash and generator wiring for engine bay).

Matt at British wiring told me the looms are all colored coded to follow the Lotus wiring schematic. I will confirm that soon as I'm a bit concerned having read some early posts that this wasn't exactly true. I'm taking him at his word as the posts I read were a number of years old. The devil is in the details and I don't take short cuts so we will see.

The new looms are in my shop, they look very well made. I am ready for the next phase of my Elan rebuild. As I have never replaced an entire loom, this will be an adventure!

Dash & Engine Bay Looms from British Wiring

[gjz30075]

Glen, I'd like to know if they distinguish between a Federal and non with their wiring. ie, 'seatbelt' warning
light, seat buzzers for a Federal car.

[Certified Lotus]

Greg, I asked for the left hand drive Federal harness. Will know soon enough if I got that.

[The Veg]

The website shows some items as being for Federal cars. It also shows some items as being for generator-equipped and some being for alternator-equipped. I wonder if they can customise for cars that have been converted to alternator?

[Certified Lotus]

The website shows some items as being for Federal cars. It also shows some items as being for generator-equipped and some being for alternator-equipped. I wonder if they can customise for cars that have been converted to alternator?

They can supply the loom for an alternator, but they didn't have any in stock. I was looking to keep this Elan as original as possible so the generator was staying in. I converted my S1 to a modern Alternator.

[Certified Lotus]

The biggest detail about rewiring a car is to have lots of time, double check everything your doing multiple times and have a large wiring schematic to trace where every wire goes. AND make sure you have photos of every switch and relay regarding which color wire goes where from the old loom as the schematic does not tell you that.

I originally purchased a Sprint loom as the PO had been rebuilding the car as a Sprint. When I took the harness out of the package and compared against the pieced loom in my dash, it was evident the loom needed to be an S4 model, NOT a Sprint. The biggest changes (that I could tell) were the connection pins from the dash loom to the engine bay loom. The Sprint loom requires a pin connector that is no longer available. The S4 loom uses Lucar on both sides. Also, there was no connection for the hazard switch on the Sprint loom. I called British wiring, explained to Josh the dilemma about the confusion of ordering a Sprint loom when I really needed an S4 loom and he was more than happy to switch them. Great service and my new loom was at my door the next day.

The looms purchased from British Wiring are first rate! All the wiring color coding matched the schematic. I had to make three jumper wires for the hazard switch as the loom connection was in a different place, closer to the warning lights where my hazard switch was located in the middle of the dash at the bottom. The loom connections were almost all correct (only three needed different connection points, spade connectors vs lucar or vis versa) but I was pleased with the overall quality of the loom.

New Dash Wiring Loom from British Wiring

Work table with lots of light for tracing wiring

I have two major critiques about the Lotus shop manual wiring schematics. First is that on most of the switches you don't know which wire connects to which spade lug on a switch or relay. Second is the micro switch wiring configuration for the federal fail safe head lights are not clearly detailed. On the second item, I was lucky to get PHarriso's wiring schematic emailed to me by Phil so I knew what needed to be done.

Even better, Phil stopped by my shop today with his daughter and reviewed the finer points of wiring the micro switch to use for flashing the lights. It was great to finally meet Phil in person as he has sold me a number of needed parts and provided great insights to things that I had not been able to figure out.

Phil and his daughter with Glen

Phil and Drew went through a number of the details to completely understand the wiring layout and connections.

Phil and Drew

A few more hours of finalizing the connection testing and we had everything as ready as we were going to get. I'll button up all the wiring with wire ties once it's confirmed everything is working as it should.

I think we are ready to install back in the car

Drew and I moved the dash back into the Elan and started connecting the steering column, engine bay and door wiring.

Drew in the thick of it

Once we attached the various grounds we reconnected the battery and started trying various switches. We found the power window switches had the ground wires connected the wrong switch terminals. The windows would go down but not up. That fried one of the ground wires in an instant. Moved the grounds to different spade connector on the switch and that solved the problem. For some reason the turn signals and hazard flashers aren't working, but that maybe because we don't have any light bulbs in most of the warning lights (didn't have the right types in stock) and possibly the circuit isn't complete? Or it could be that we don't have the right connections on the flashers and various switches. Who knows, Its just a guess but will see next week.

Does anyone have photos that clearly show which colored coded wires go to which spade connectors on the switches? My photos only show the general layout and I did not take the time to photograph each rocker switch individually (lesson learned). In particular, I am looking for the wiring to the hazard switch and the flasher relays on a Federal car. My hazard switch is mounted on the dash.

It was time for a beer after a long day. "Old Engine Oil" from Scotland. Made in small batches. I wonder why.....

End of day beer

Next week is installing the new engine bay wiring loom and testing everything before reassembling the dash and interior of the car.

[Certified Lotus]

Words of the day........GROUND WIRES. No matter how well you think you have provided enough grounds, think again!

Last week Drew and I had successfully installed the new dash loom from British Wiring with the main consideration being the actual connections on each switch as the wiring diagram doesn't tell you which wire to which terminal on each switch. And considering the existing loom in the car was a splice job of three different looms plus a few extra wires.......well it was just about impossible to match anything.

An Ohm meter and test light are not only essential, they are your friends in this re-wiring of the car.

The objective today was to install the new engine bay loom from British Wiring and trace out the very unusual and not so well documented federal safety flashed light circuit. Even Buckland's book says he couldn't find an acceptable solution so he does not include a wiring diagram. Thank goodness for Phil's excellent diagram, but applying it to the existing loom and strange relays I have is another story. What made it a bit of a challenge is the fact that we are using Hella German relays (they have fuses built into the relay boxes) versus English Lucas one. I was going to replace the relays with OEM type when I found out that they don't exist and would need to use "similar" ones. Besides, having more fused electric components in these cars is a good thing.

First we laid out the new loom from British Wiring and traced out the existing loom with the new one over it, just to see what didn't match. Once we figured out most of the connections (those Hella relays were going to be the bear) and removed the old loom to install the new one.

New loom laid out over old loom

It looked like a mess, but it made all the sense in the world to me

Relay area of loom in engine bay

Relay with color coded wiring and pin numbering

Drew worked on the Lucar connections under the dash connecting the engine bay loom to the dash loom. I worked on the engine bay loom replacing all the old connections with new ones. Those darn relays for lights and horn were tough to trace back but we persevered and finally got it figured out. Or so we thought. There were two wires left in the headlight area of the loom that didn't go anywhere and they weren't on the schematic. A black wire with red trace that had a female spade connector and a black wire with ring connector.

We connected the battery and started trying each of the switched circuits go through them one by one and figuring out what worked and what didn't. The trial and error of figuring our wiring and pin locations took some time and its here that having a big schematic to trace and a test light plus ohm meter are invaluable.

Tracing wiring circuits

We got everything working except the headlights and the instrument lighting. No matter what wires we traced and tested we could not get those lights to function. Drew and I decided to run a bunch of temporary ground wires and guess what? Everything worked! That black wire with red trace in the engine bay......once grounded the relays worked. Although each of the instruments had a ground wire running to it, we ran a jumper wire daisy chaining the ground to each instrument and all the lights worked!

We set about photographing each connector with color coding and terminal pin location for future reference. Now the engine bay is finally back to were it should be with only a few things to be tidied up.

Documenting correct wire location on each switch

Engine bay wiring near completion

For some reason the electric pump motor for the windscreen sprayer would not function. It looked brand new but a quick test hooked up to a 12 volt power supply showed it was dead. Replaced it with a new one, which functions well.

I need to run wires from the radiator fan and thermostat switch back to the dash so I'll make a harness for that and I noted I need to run a wire to the micro switch for the lights so that will go into my new harness too. I'm hoping next week we have all the electrical issues solved and the dash installed back into the car.

[seniorchristo]

Terrific job Glen! I wouldn't worry too much about keeping it original with that big valve engine sitting there!
I thought about driving over yesterday but my clutch slave gave it up. The weather was almost balmy over by the shore.
Later
Chris

[Certified Lotus]

I guess your right Chris. This S4 won't be completely original, but it will be a very well built car
It was warm yesterday, almost unreal for mid-January!

Too bad about your slave. I'm so paranoid about the location of it right next to the headers I keep a new spare in my tool kit in the car