Unfortunately it was a huge case of Yeah Right.
Phil has been an immense help and fantastic source of advice and wiring diagrams for various aircon systems, but as much as we tried we haven't been able to find anything that matches what I have. Add to this the fact that I didn't really know what all the elements of the aircon were and then on top of that a lot of the parts were missing. Some had been raided from the car already and some I just didn't realise were part of the unit.
On top of that I have quite a few wires that I have no clues about what they do. The only way I can overcome all these problems is to go back a step and start over. Garry Pegler luckily has another couple of Celicas I can raid, so I spent 6 hours with the donor car shown below and I again pulled the aircon out, but this time I pulled everything out that was attached to that loom and labeled it as I went. This means I have all the fuse blocks , relays and plugs that go to things like cigarette lighters, hazard flasher switch, overdrive switch and plugs to the dash panel etc. You name it I have it. So this time maybe. Anyway out of interest this is the actual donor car. Pretty hard to recognise but it is a Celica.
This is the full loom. It basically forms a square, that runs along the firewall down the drivers side inner guard, along behind the grille and back up the passengers side inner guard to hook up at the firewall again.
Here you can see the loom is now opened up. I have used Freezer ties to hold the wiring together or it would be a hell of a mess. By doing this I can remove wires relatively easily but still keep some semblance of order. You also get an idea of how many wires I am going to be working with. Still with a bit of patience I should be able to isolate what is aircon and what isn't.
This is all the tape and plastic sheathing that was removed from the loom.
Because I have everything now I am able to trace every wire to its origin and establish if it is integral or critical to the aircon components. If it isn't I am able to delete it. Here you can see all the labels I have been adding to the wires.
This is one circuit I have deleted that I might try and do something with later on. Its for the electric mirrors. I have already bought some side mirrors, they are a bit like those you find on a modern Japanese car only a lot smaller and they are colour keyed to the body so are quite discrete. They have a mirror lens inside the housing that moves in all directions manually. If I can find an electric mirror mechanism small enough to fit inside the housing it could be worth having a play around with.
Oh well back to it.... thank goodness I have carpet on the garage floor. Its bloody hard on the back and the knees. Still, being able to drive in total comfort in summer should make it all worthwhile.
On another note totally unrelated to cars......
Its Halloween today so I thought I'd have a bit of fun. I set up this battery charger in the shed and pulled the door down so I could see the kids coming but they couldn't see me....
I wired up this horn button to provide an easy to operate press of the button switch that is connected to a couple of wires fed out under the garage door.
....And they lead to this puppy..... its a 12 Volt siren. It is a bit like an air raid siren only tiny so it fair screams...... as you can see I hid it behind the Pot Plant at the front door.
When each victim came to the door it was just a case of hitting the horn button just as the kid was about to knock on the door. I had to pick the victims carefully as I didn't want to terrify the little kids or those that were with parents. It was the pimply faced teenagers who in my opinion shouldn't be getting treats, so I was happy to oblige with the tricks.
The best reaction was a kid that leapt back and was just about ready to leave along with his mates, when Janine opened the door and provided them with a few treats, but not before I heard one of them say "don't get too close or you'll set that bloody thing off again". Haaa haaa.
Next year it might be a truck horn or maybe I'll rig up a ghost that jumps out or something, now that would be funny!
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