Rewiring OJR

[Matt Elan]

I sort of started rewiring OJR (my 69 Plus 2) in September 2020 in my tent on my drive but it was not a very nice working environment so I didn't get far, then I had to finish off my book on the original Elite. But the good news was that my planning appeal for the garage came through, allowing me to build a new warm and dry garage - hurrah!
Thats now complete, with light and power and a very snazzy roller door and I've sort of finished fitting it out so I can now get on with the rewire and hopefully get rid of the rats nest of dodgy wiring that is currently in place.

First off was to get the engine loom out - Blimy what a palaver! I've had to loosen off the rad, disconnect the coil and take off the front grille to get accesss and even then it was a bit of a struggle to get it all out. So first set of pictures here:

Engine bay 1

Engine bay 2

Errant loom out at last!

So now to lable up the new loom and then on into the cabin and dash! Watch this space.....

[nwbaxter66]

Looking forward to the pictures

[Matt Elan]

Phase 2 - getting the dash loom out..... oh what fun

I was not looking forwards to this little operation but after a couple of hours in the garage I stripped out the dash loom with a little help from Poppy the ex-puppy who is now a fully grown Springer:

The view from the passenger footwell - note the block connector.......

And this is the mess I had to get rid off - view behind the dash(ish) from the passenger side:

Eventually I got the mass of wires out, pulling through from the drivers side. Then I put the old loom on the bench and compared it to the new one; bearing in mind this is a Plus 2 not an 'S' but it does have a few 'S' parts like fog and spots but there does seem to have been a huge amount of redundant wires all waiting to set the car on fire...

Next job is to try to find out where the tail light loom goes through the cabin without destroying any trim - carpets and soundproofing seems to be well stuck down! That's a job for another day though - off to take the hound for a walk in the rain now.

[nwbaxter66]

Outstanding ...I have to say that I doubt that my 13-year-old Australian Shepherd will be as much use in my attempts.
I had to give up on pulling all of the front loom out until I could get the dash out.

[Matt Elan]

I've loosened off the dash and pulled it backwards a few inches rather than taking it out al together - so far I've had just enough clearance to get everything out. Whether I can get the new loom in is another question for another day!

[Matt Elan]

Today it was the rear loom out. Got all the boot wires out ok but my weird wiring had a plug up by the tank to connect the rest of the loom to the rear. So I now need to get the carpet up in the cabin to get the remaining loom out and give me the route for the new loom. Onwards and upwards!

[Matt Elan]

The saga continues. I eventually manged to pull the old loom out of the cabin without doing too much damage to the carpets, and what damage I did do should stick back down OK - I hope! I also had to take off the rear side trims in the cabin to gain access to the heater rear window connections - not that the heated window ever worked when I first got the car although the warning light did which was nice.

Over the weekend I installed the new loom in the boot. This went in fairly easily although I did have to re-route it around the fuel tank as when I tried to put back the boot floor boards the loom was in the way. Doh. Earths were closely scutinised, with a few extra ones set up. I used a doubled up wire for the rear window earth and took it straight onto the main earth point bolt in the boot, where it joined up with the loom earths and the battery earths.

So the next task is to venture into the cabin and start to fit the dash loom - that'll be fun I suspect!

[Matt Elan]

I'm making progress. Now I've got the rear loom in, I thought I would get on with the dash loom, but got distracted by the speakers in the parcel shelf. I'd stripped out their rather tatty wiring with the rest of the rear loom, so decided to make up some new leads using decent weight cable. Big mistake. I'd not looked closely at the speakers, but when I did I realised they were knackered. And of course when I took them out, the vinyl on the parcel shelf was also knackered where the speakers were fitted, too knackered to be covered by the new speakers. So I'll be doing a bit of trimming when the new vinyl arrives, so just sorting out my spary on glue..... But I made up the new speaker leads anyway, and bought a new but cheap head unit from Amazon - FM radio with bluetooth and a load of other features I'll ignore so I can fit that while the dash is out.

So back to the dash loom. When OJR was restored it had later Triumph / BL switches fitted as usually found in late Europas. These include the horn button on one stalk and usfully had a pair of plugs to fit them into the dash loom making it easy to remove the switches. So I thought I'd keep them. The only problem was that the wiring downstream of the plug main/dip/indicators/horn switch was well and truly botched up:

Well bodged wiring

So I had to cut off various extraneous wires which had been soldered onto the main wires:

Extra brown wiring needs removing

And then used heat shrink to clean the repairs up

Shrink wrap to keep things safe

And then it was add bullets to the tidyed up wires. First of all fit them in my new mini vice, and get them tinned:

Then solder on the bullets

And finally I've got a decent set of cabling that I can fit to the end of the dash loom!

So that was a good couple of enjoyable hours in the garage while the rain was pouring down outside. I feel like I'm making progress albeit a bit slow! But as usual with OJR, evey little job throws up other jobs if they are going to be done properly! I'm rather looking forwards to getting OJR back on the road soon and selling her, so I can concentrate on my original project, my Plus 2S which at least I know will be done to my standards!

[Matt Elan]

The preperation for the insertion of the dash loom continues. When I got the new loom I clocked it had four bulb holders for push-in bulbs which I assumed were for the minor intrument lights - but of course they are not; they are for the warning lights in the speedo and tacho - ignition, high beam, indicator and low fuel (not that I have any way of getting the low fuel to work as far as I know!). So I resurrected the old instrument lighting loom (White with red tracer wires) and got it all into a sensible configuration, with decent earths, new bulbs and then tested it to make sure I'll be able to see the instruments at night. Previously there were varied light levels in the instruments so a job worth doing. On the bench all the lights are now equally bright, and I've also daisy chained a separate earth wire from the speedo to the tacho and then down to the main earth point on the chassis behind the bottom of the dash. Heres a picture of the refurbished loom:

And then my mate Dave turned up with his Sprint to show off his new green tint windscreen and the sunroof he's fitted - lovely job on a lovely car:

Anyway, hopefully I'll get the dash loom in next week, assuming nothing else distracts me!

[mikealdren]

HI Matt,
do you know what the column stalks are off, they have extra functions that I would like to add to the standard Triumph stalks.

[Matt Elan]

Hi Mike - the stalks are late Triumph / British Leyland units - Lucas part number 163SA and 164SA. Used on the late Europas; the best thing about them is the horn press so you can loose the 'pencil' lash-up on the steering wheel!
HTHs Matt

[Matt Elan]

Just spent a couple of hours peering myopically at the new dash loom, wiring diagram and summary of Brit wiring colours standard to try to work out what each bit of the new loom is supposed to do. It was fairly successful, I've marked up all I could with tags made from masking tape so will hopefully have some fun fitting everything in tomorrow!

Wish me luck! Now off to watch the French GP....no spoilers please!

[mikealdren]

Hi Mike - the stalks are late Triumph / British Leyland units - Lucas part number 163SA and 164SA. Used on the late Europas; the best thing about them is the horn press so you can loose the 'pencil' lash-up on the steering wheel!
HTHs Matt

Thanks Matt,
did you fit them? Was it straightforward?

[RichardHawkins]

Matt,

I tag my wires with white PVC insulation tape, and write on it with a fine black indelible felt tip pen. I find this more durable than other methods I have tried, also you can pull the wires through a grommet without loosing the tag.

Hope this helps,

Richard Hawkins

[Matt Elan]

Good tip there Richard, I only had masking tape to hand! I did use indelible marker though
Mike - the column switches were on the car when I got it but the column looks similar to my other plus 2S column with earlier switches but I’m not 100% sure they are comparable