Chilly morning on Saturday. Low 30 degrees F outside. Fired up the propane heater early and in about an hour the garage is a nice toasty 80 degrees. T-Shirt weather! Drew is always happy to walk into my warm garage with music playing in the background and a plan for the day.
We have been tackling the wiring for the last couple of weekends and today we promised ourselves we would get it all resolved with the outcome to be able to attach the dash back in position and start re-assembling the interior the next week.
The list of need to accomplish was; get the hazard flashers to work, get the turn signals to work in conjunction with the hazard flashers operation properly (this is a major problem, we can get both to work separately but not when they are both connected), wire the thermostat relay for the electric fan for the radiator, install the NOS windshield wiper arms and insure they park on the left & connect the horn.
As we started tracing what we had worked on a couple of weeks ago, we remembered the door courtesy light switch on the left door had a broken connection. R&D only had the plunger switch, not the spade connector that the wiring harness connects to. We found the old connection piece still in the spade plug on the old harness, pulled it out and set up a small jig on the work bench to silver braze the two pieces. Good as new!
- Brazing the courtesy light switch
- The finished connector goes on this plunger switch
I had mentioned we were having problems with the turn signals and the hazard flasher. We could get either to operate properly when the wiring was connected to the individual switches, but we couldn't get both to function if both were wired. It drove us crazy not being able to figure it out. After hours of retesting and rewiring the relays and tracing everything out multiple times Drew and I were looking at the wiring diagram for the 100th time when it dawned on both of us the 6 pole hazard switch mounted on the dash (it is not a stock item on the S4, the PO installed it in the new dash he had made) didn't have a jumper connecting the right and left side of the switch so the right and left side lights would work together. DUH! I quickly made a spade connector jumper, hooked it up and presto........everything worked!
- Green wire jumper solution on hazard switch
As we went thru every electrical switch operation Drew didn't like it that the high beam green indicator light wasn't very bright. He took the speedo out of the dash and completely disassembled it finding a piece of rubber gasket over the plastic lens inside. He cleaned everything up, reassembled, reinstalled and tested. Nice bright high beam light. Its great having a friend who is very much into the details. I told Drew he was the only guy I know who I would not worry about what he was doing when I all of a sudden found him taking the speedo out of the dash and taking it apart. That is trust!
- Speedo repair, high beam lens
Everything back together again and one more test of every switch and circuit. Everything except the horn is now connected and functioning properly.
- Testing all the electrical circuits for proper function
The wiring of the thermostat control for the radiator fan was next. The PO had wires installed but they didn't seem to make sense. We cut the wires from the fan motor and ran temporary jumpers from fan motor to thermo switch when we realized that we would not get the fan to work without the thermo switch getting hot and closing the circuit. Out came the switch, heated it up and tested it with our meter to see what temp it opened and closed. We read the owners manual to find out there is a small adjustment screw inside the thermo switch. Our bench test with heat gun wasn't giving us an accurate enough temp reading so we moved to the kitchen and boiled a small pot of water with the thermometer in it. Adjusted the thermo switch so it closed the circuit at 180 degree F and opened at 140 degrees F. Reinstalled the thermo switch in the radiator and ran the wire to the fuse box on the firewall. I will install an inline fuse on this wire just to be safe.
- Thermo switch testing for Radiator
The wiper arm install. I was lucky enough to find a pair of NOS wiper arms from one source and bought a new pair of correct wiper blades from R&D Enterprises. This car didn't come with arms or blades so I had no idea which way they parked. I had created a post on this subject with the response being the majority of the cars have the blades parked on the same side as the steering wheel. Installed the arms, pointed then up in the air (so I wouldn't bend them in case they didn't park properly) and turned on the wiper motor. Amazingly they park in the right direction. Its about time something went according to plan
- NOS wiper arms for S4
- Wiper arms parked in proper location
Good day of major accomplishments! Next week is reassembly of dash and the detail of tucking all the wiring nicely. I wonder what I'm in store for next..........