Paul Matty wiring loom

[elansprint71]

I have been looking at my new three-piece PM wiring loom for several weeks now and I still can't figure how to join up the three looms; they sent me no connectors, no wiring diagram and the wires do not appear to match up. Some of the wires are just snipped off, no bullet (or other) terminal fitted. I had an unsatisfactory talk with Paul a while back and his "sparky" called me when I was on holiday.


I am very tempted to send the whole lot back and get one from the dreaded CN, who use five multi-plugs to joint the looms (1 minute max to clip together) AND supply a sensible wiring diagram.

Anyone else had trouble sorting out this problem? Paul claims that nobody has ever complained before.

Cheers,
Pete.

[lotusanglia1965]

Had no problems with the loom supplied by susan miller,only it was slightly universal,as it seems lotus kept changing the spec of it !
you may need a pack of rubber covered bullet female connectors, single and twin,should be available at most factors, even H**fords. good luck,
Martin

[nebogipfel]

Pete,

I agree the looms do look like a mess. I bought standard looms from SM which I suspect are very much the same as those supplied by PM.

One problem is that the looms join by good old bullet connectors and you do not get new sleeves (the black female bit) I had to buy quite a few single and double sleeves to complete the job.

The other problem is that the colours are often not exactly the same.

Luckily I have a sparky friend who helped me make sense of it but it was a fairly long job. We started with the underdash loom and worked to the front and back from there. It does eventually start to make some kind of sense.

I would share your trepidation with anything supplied by CN but if you aren't worried about total originality multiplugs would make life a lot easier especially if you get good instructions and a clear diagram.

I think you will find that there are still lots of connections to find homes for and a few wires which have none (I had some on mine but can't remember where they went. I have a feeling they were in the door courtesy switch area)

If you aren't fluent with wires I think fitting a new loom will always be a bit of a head scratcher

[steveww]

I fiited a complete new PM loom to my S4 a couple of years ago. The loom does not include the female bits (oh err) for the bullet connectors, also there are some free wire ends that will need to be made up and some additional grounding wire that you will have to make. http://www.vehicle-wiring-products.co.uk/ is a good place to get all the extra little bits you need. Really it was not difficult to fit and everything aligned up OK. It help if you are very comfortable with all things electric.

A useful tip: When you come to start testing the new loom put a small fuse between the battery and the loom, so if you messed anything up it will just blow the fuse and not set fire to the loom Also it is woth purchasing the insertion tool for the bullet connectors, it make things 100 times easier.

[archigator]

Here's a web page I found usefull in properly soldering bullet connectors...

http://www.oldbritts.com/51_900269.html

... and I agree the bullet connection tool is great for making quick work of those Lucas connectors.

Gary
'71 Elan Sprint
Miami, FL

[Foxie]

Also it is woth purchasing the insertion tool for the bullet connectors, it make things 100 times easier.

What is a bullet connector insertion tool ?

Can you describe this tool, and where is it available ?

I have always soldered the bullets onto the cable ends.

Sean Murray

[nebogipfel]

Sean, It's like a pair of pliers and it is used to squeeze the bullets into the outer sleeve rather than trying to push them in with a screwdriver and making a blood stained hole in the palm of your hand

[Foxie]

Now I get it, that sounds like a handy tool. Now if there is one to open the seized connectors without pulling the cable out of the bullet ....

[elansprint71]

Sean,
You can get the bullet squeezing tool from Vehicle Wiring Products (see Steve's earlier post), the tool for splitting seized connectors is called and axe

Pete. Thanks for the comments, btw, guys.

[flyinggellyfish]

I bought a loom from CN as it had a conversion from dynamo to alternator section ready made in the loom . It was fairly easy to fit but a couple of wires were in the wrong place . I spoke to them and they sent me some loom tape free to cut and re locate the wires . The loom came with a packet of bullet connectors to join the 3 looms together .A couple of cut ends to join up to a couple of non standard connectors .

[pereirac]

My Sprint had a PM wiring loom fitted a couple of years ago. There seem to be spare connections and wires everywhere but that's probably playing safe given that it appears no two Elans were built the same way...Anyway everything now works so I can't complain..

Carl

[elansprint71]

.... so I took my loom back to Matty's because they offered to show me where the "spare" wires went (I am talking about the spares in the junctions between the three parts of the loom, not the ends where the "devices" are connected). There followed a fair bit of head scratch by the two of them, a couple of disagreements, a declaration that "usually it is like... this", etc. "Those should have bullets fitted, there's en extra white, brown....etc" you get the picture.

Eventually they managed to sort out all the vital wires and push them together, I now have a much-platted loom which will be labelled before dismantling. There seems to be some illogical junctions in this three piece set- why should a very fat wire connect to a thin one, for example? Why have they taped together a small bunch of wires but the corresponding ones don't match. BTW, I am an electro-mechanical engineer, so understand about loading, voltage drop, Fleming's left hand rule, Ohm's Law and Kichoff's Theorem, the Da Vinci Code & Shroedinger's sodding cat too.

My advice would be- buy one from the dreaded Chris Neil, clip together your multi-plugs in 30 seconds and carry on with the job!

Pete

[type26owner]

Pete,
I buy the loom from DBE so this may or may not apply. What I found was the black ground wires were NOT all interconnected inside the loom. At several places where the bullet-ended wires protruded out of the loom and of course it's the portion underneath the dash they had to connected in as a common connection or a whole way circuit would be left floating. It appeared they had provided a bullet which would ground each device if connected individually so don't fall for that. Don't find this out the hard way like I did. It's easy to fix when the dash is loose. Don't assume anything, use the VOM to check the continuity before bolting up the dash back in place.

This should go without having to say it but I know you already know this stuff. I'm only saying this for the benefit of those who are not as knowledgable as you but will be attempting to replace a loom.

[elansprint71]

Good call Keith.
I'm going to try to ensure that everything works before the dash goes back into position, just wating for the weather to show sign of warming up!

Cheers,
pete.