Rear Axle - Jag Rear Overhaul - Part 5

Man what a cool day I just had....actually its been a cool few days as I have been picking up a few parts for the Jag Rear as they are finished at chrome, HPC and the painters. So here's a bit of an update.

Firstly remember these Jag rear tie bars that Bill Dobbin helped me with by drawing them up in CAD so they could be laser cut?

Well they've been chromed now. Nice!

Remember this hub drive flange?

Its been Ceramic coated by HPC now. 

Along with a few washers and spacers so they won't rust.

They also coated the diff head drive flanges pictured in the bottom right of this next pic.

They now look like this.

I had the team at HPC coat the centres of the brake discs too.

So now I have a shed full of blingy bits all coming together.

While all this parts finishing has been going on I have also taken the diff head away to be bead blasted and cleaned in a hot tank before going to the painters for a coating of feather fill. Its a really thick and hard filler that fills up imperfections before painting. This is what the diff head looked like before it went away.

And here it is with the feather fill on it.

You can see in this next pic the orange peel finish after the feather fill has been applied over the rough cast surface.

With a bit of sanding though it comes up nice and smooth like this.

I have spent an hour on it this afternoon and I reckon at least another 5 to go. Then I will add a bit of filler to the real low spots, sand it some more, then return it to the painters for another coat of feather fill to cover any spots where I have gone through the current coat to bare metal.

Once thats done, I will sand it again before they then protect it with a coat of white paint. That will seal it so it is no longer porous and at that point it can go back to Bill for reassembly of all the diff head internals. The white paint will mean that any oil or grease that gets on it won't be a problem and it won't matter if Bill accidentally knocks or scratches it as it can easily be touched up.

This is important as when setting up a diff there are a lot of fine tolerances that need to be set so that the diff runs smoothly and doesn't flog out the bearings or the gears but also so that it isn't noisey. To achieve this shims (very thin washers) are put in and measurements taken to check tolerances or what is sometimes referred to as pre-load. To get it right it can take several goes which means unassembling and reassembling several times. Obviously you don't want the finished painted surface getting damaged so thats why they use a cheap coat of white paint.

Once its all assembled it will go back to the painters one last time for its final coat of paint. I'm not gonna tell you what colour just yet, you'll have to wait and see!

Now last and but no means least I got quite a buzz today when I went and saw my mate Pete Clothier. He had some springs he was selling that I needed for my build, so he kindly did a deal on them for me. Thanks Pete, very much appreciated. Here's what they look like mounted on the shock absorbers. Beautiful!

But that wasn't the buzz.....the thrill of the day was going for a ride up the road in his Coupe that he is nearing completion on. This body came out of the same mould as mine. Pete has done a fantastic job getting this car to this point and he does it all himself. Its an absolute credit to him. Going for a ride in it brought back a few memories of my last coupe and has spurred me on even more. I really miss not having a car that's on the road!

Anyway feast your eye's on this. It is a real cool build.

Things I've learnt while building my Hot Rod

Some of these things are personal experience and others are things I have learned while observing others. All good lessons in life!

If you think it could happen, it probably will. Learnt while holding a part between my legs while using a wire brush on an electric drill. I thought.....ooohhh that could catch on my shorts then I might end up wire brushing my leg.....nah should be all right. Guess what.....I wire brushed my leg.

If you think it could happen, it probably will. Learnt while holding a piece of steel down with my foot while I ground it with an angle grinder. I was only wearing my jandals at the time and thought that grinder could do a bit of damage if I slipped.....nah should be right I'll hold it real tight.....Guess what.....I have a nice chunk out of the side of my jandal and a scar on my foot.

If you think it could happen, it probably will. Learnt while lying on my back under the car tightening a bolt above me. I thought.....ooohhh that spanner would hurt if I slipped and dropped it on my head.....nah should be all right. Guess what.....I got a black eye.

Fibreglass resin doesn't look good on your wedding band.

Fibreglass resin sticks real well to your wedding band.

Wives get mad at husbands who get Fibreglass resin on their wedding band.

Brake parts cleaner gets Fibreglass resin off wedding bands.

Brake parts cleaner stings like a bastard if you get some on the cut on your hand.

Brake parts cleaner in a cut on your hand is nowhere near as bad as when your wife found out you had Fibreglass resin on your wedding band.

You feel like a dick when you come back to your car at a gas station after paying for the gas and you climb into the right hand side of the car and then remember its left hand drive. You feel like even more of a dick when the guy in the next lane says "not your car is it mate"

Never leave your car without the handbrake firmly on even if you believe you have it in Park.

Open car doors and Garage door openings don't agree with one another.

If there is just one rock in your garden and your car is reversing toward that garden without a driver....it will find the rock.

The time you think it will take to build your hotrod should be multiplied by 'X' to the power of 3. The estimated cost of building your hotrod should be multiplied by a similar factor.

You shouldn't wait to get motivated to go in the shed. You should go in the shed to get motivated.

No matter what you build someone won't like it.

Opinions are like bums. Everybody has one.

Trademe is a great source of parts. Make good use of their automated e-mails to send you a list of items to look through everyday related to a key word. This keeps you aware of stuff that is being listed and means you get an early heads up. This is particularly important if the item has a Buy Now.

In hot rodding you make good mates with people when you least expect it.

Good mates are easiest to find when you aren't looking for them.

Just giving people the time of day and having a good chat with them brings you more reward than ignoring people because you are too busy trying to reap reward by working at something.

Spending 10 more minutes pondering your hot rod build and thinking things through will save you hours of wasted effort.

When your wife says ooh yes that is interesting. She is not at all interested.

By taking the time to do even the smallest things slowly and carefully on your hot rod, it will add patience to your approach and the end result will show the extra care you took. For example don't tear that electrical tape , take the time to cut it with scissors.

Chrome rusts. You must keep it protected with polish.
If you don't polish the chrome..... it has a tendency to fall off.

When checking stuff out on Trade Me use the link at the bottom of each listing "More Stuff You May Like" as that takes you to other similar items that might not have found otherwise.


Other people don't work to your time frames.
Never say "oh no hurry mate, just fit it in when you can"

There is more wiring in a car heater/air conditioning unit that there is on the Starship Enterprise.

You can work out any wiring with a lot of patience and a circuit tester. It all comes down to electrons flowing from the positive terminal to the negative terminal.

There is much more reward in doing something on your hot rod yourself than there is in paying someone.

When embarking on something you have never done before, observing and listening to others that have done it is valuable but the real learning is in the doing.

If you are not patient and tenacious don't build a hot rod.

Always search expired listings on Trade Me. This gives you a good idea as to what similar items sell for. It is also a great source for finding an item that you want but is not listed at present. You can often ask the seller to relist the item, then buy it.

There is always someone who can do a nicer job than you can. Accept it and just do the best you can.

If you are looking at building a hot rod start a blog. It helps to keep you motivated when you can look back at all the things you have done so far. Its great keeping friends in the loop with where you are up to. Others offer ideas and encouragement. And by far the best bit is that it is great for keeping a record of the build for your kids and grandkids to read.

If you build a hot rod and join a club you won't suffer from loneliness.

Its more fun building a hot rod than driving one.

By doing one thing on your hot rod every day you will make good progress. It might be researching something, pondering an idea, buying a part or making something. All these things will inevitably get you there. Watching TV won't.

Three drops of hardener per tablespoon of Polyester Resin for Fibregalss. If you want it to harden more quickly or in lower temperatures add an extra drop per tablespoon. If you don't want it to harden at all don't add any hardener. Your shed will stink like fibreglass for weeks and you'll have to scrape off the fibreglass and resin that hasn't set so you can start over. The scraped off fibreglass looks like candy floss. The scraped off fibreglass doesn't taste candy floss.

If you want to see what you will look like in ten years time don't wear a hat when sanding fibreglass and your hair will go grey.

Never do a brown eye while standing on the back of a moving Ford Bonus while cruising at the Beach Hop. When the brakes are applied your butt will continue to travel at the original speed of the truck and go through the back windscreen of the cab. Broken glass and bums are not good friends. Novus....show us your crack!

If you drop your cellphone down a portaloo while at a hot rod event you shouldn't retrieve it as your hand goes blue and it grosses your friends out.

If you retrieve your cellphone from a portaloo and it still works try and remember not to leave the phone in your pants pocket 3 weeks later when they are being washed as this will stuff your phone. Assumption is then that clean water is more harmful to cellphones than raw sewerage.

If while you are at a hot rod event and someone comes to your group trying to sell you something, you should revert to your basic instincts like animals in the wild. You should move away slowly and allow the weakest of the herd to be captured by the salesman so that the rest of you can be spared. Thats right, you bail on your mate. Then you go and watch from afar and giggle like Hyena's at your friends misfortune.

Mates love taking the piss, like the time when a smart arse holding a nut under the car while you tighten the bolt from above, looks up and announces he thinks he can see the weight you thought you had lost.

There are blokes who can clear a six car garage with one fart.

Some bolts are left hand threads. If you try and undo them like a right hand thread bolt you actually tighten it and you will eventually break them or strip them. Either way you are buggered.

Banana skins in the diff do quiten it down but can only ever be a temporary fix. There is no replacement for rebuilding things properly.

Not everyone who charges for their work knows what they are doing.

Not everyone who offers free advice knows what they are doing.

You can drive your hot rod all day well below the speed limit but rest assured that one time when you roar away at the lights there will be a mufty cop watching you.

When you drive a hot rod every man with a big Audi or BMW X5 and a very small pecker, has to show you how fast his car is, by passing you at the earliest opportunity.

When you make friends with other hot rodders, not everything you do will be hot rod related. You will help people shift house, remove spa pools, dismantle buildings, go fishing, have BBQ's and hear about the arguments they just had with their wife.

Some swapmeets are stink. But even the worst swapmeet is better than just lying in bed doing nothing.

People trying to sell stuff at swapmeets must like taking all their crap for a ride on the trailer just so they can cart it all home again.

Cheap Hot Rod parts end up costing you as much as the better quality more expensive one. Its just that you learn a lot more if you buy a cheap part, like how long it takes for a tow truck to arrive at Waitakaruru on a Sunday afternoon.

When torquing down bolts put oil on the threads so you get a more accurate torque reading.

When driving a hot rod you have to be prepared to be friendly as you will be waved to by all sorts of people who are excited to see your car. Some will give a simple wave while others will give you strange salutes like "Westside" or "Yo Homey" while others will hang out their windows with their camera like self appointed paparazzi.

Lifting the body off the chassis of your hot rod is something that happens regularly throughout a hot rod build. Its a good excuse to have your mates round to give you a hand and to have a beer as you all stand around marveling at progress to date.

POR 15 paint is almost as permanent as a tattoo.

POR 15 paint can be removed only by mechanical means when it is dry.

You should not use a disc grinder to try and remove POR 15 paint from yourself as it hurts like a bastard.

There is nothing better than seeing the face on a kid when he goes for his first ride in your hot rod.

You can't rely on memory. Always make to do lists when building a hot rod.

Its a great feeling when your hot rod is featured in a magazine.

Looking at many other hot rods for ideas and clues on how they went about a task can save you lots of time when you embark on the job yourself.

Picking a paint colour is the hardest part of a hot rod build.

If something should happen to your hot rod, remind yourself it is only a car.

If you are having the slightest hint of a charging problem get it sorted. You can rest assured when the damn thing won't start it will be the one time you really need it to start....like when you are holding up every other vehicle who is meant to be filing out of the paddock to join the procession down the main street for the Beach Hop parade!

If you are having the slightest hint of a charging problem get it sorted. You can rest assured when the damn thing won't start it will be the one time you really need it to start....like when you have a mates coffin on the back of your hot rod truck and you are meant to be taking him for his last ride down to the crematorium.

Just cause your passenger mate went into the shop while you pumped the gas, never assume he paid for the petrol while he was in there. It is just as likely that all he did was go to the bathroom. You won't find this out however until you are nearing the next town and there is a police road block.

If a friend in your group doesn't appear to be following you any longer, don't assume he has broken down and don't rush back to see if he is okay. You might just find that his delay was because he had been detained by an officer of the law for speeding......oh and guess what.....in your haste to get back to help your trouble stricken friend.......you get pinged for speeding too!

When you are soldering and have a hot soldering iron, be careful where you put it, they have a tendency to melt anything that gets in their way, including your hands. I have found that improvising with a hook to hang it off the end of the bench is a good idea. Don't forget though (as I did) when you go to work at the end of the bench. Mmmm I can smell sausages!

All wires in a car come prepacked with smoke in them. If you get the connections wrong the wires automatically let the smoke out to tell you, you have it wrong.

When you are really thirsty and take a good gulp of "Lift"lemon drink....first make sure it is "Lift" and not a toxic caustic cleaning solution that instantly dissolves all the lining in your throat.

Rear Axle - Jag Rear Overhaul - Part 4

Okay more progress here, though not as fast as some might expect. In fact I have had a couple of people say they were a bit disappointed when they saw my last post about the Jag Rear go up as they thought that would be it reconditioned, reassembled and installed in the chassis.

Sorry guys its not quite that easy.

Actually working on this Jag rear its the first time I have really understood the phrase that something has been "over engineered".  I have heard that said about a Jag rear before and I certainly know why now. They are way more complicated than they need to be and there are way more components than you'd ever see on a Japanese car. The good bit though is it is all serviceable!

You see this next picture is what all the components look like when taken apart.....and this is just for one side. This is repeated for the other side of the car. Double click on the image to have a closer look.

I have highlighted a few of the parts.....firstly the yellow part is the axle and universals I showed you in the recent blog. This gives you an idea of how much more there is too this back axle.

The orange parts I don't have. Instead of this spindle set up with one big wing nut (called a knock off) I will have a more common set up for attaching the wheels like any other road car where there will be 5 wheel nuts. The next picture shows the drive flange with its 5 studs for the wheel nuts.

Now back to the diagram.....The pink highlighted parts are as follows.....

1. These are just dust covers and detract from the overall look and won't be used.

2. This is what is known as the cage and it basically is a frame that the whole unit bolts into. I won't be using this either as they are bulky and ugly. Instead the diff will bolt straight up to the chassis (first picture below) and the two halves of the rear axle assembly will be tied together by the two tie bars in the second picture below.

3. The third part highlighted pink is a bottom plate that ties everything together underneath. This will be replaced by a new fancier one.

4. Last but not least the 4th part highlighted pink is a control arm. These ugly pressed steel ones will be replaced by a cleaner looking chromed control arm.

As for the rest of the bits though.....and there are about 100 of them......I needed to clean them and inspect them and decide what needs to be replaced. There are a few bits too that I will get chromed or HPC'd to protect them. If I don't they may rust. Some of the bits are barely visible but if I don't protect them they will still deteriorate and drop rust stained water if they get wet etc.

This is the bucket of bits I need to attend to.

And here we are all set to go with a basin, parts cleaning brush, a good supply of rags and Kerosene for breaking down the grease and grime.

So after about two hours of soaking, scrubbing and wiping, here are all the bits laid out.

Now I am all set to make runs to the Jag dealer to replace a few parts, HPC to get a few parts ceramic coated, the electroplater to get some parts chromed and I'll also need to source a few new bearings. That should keep me busy all week.

Now on top of that.....this next drawing shows an exploded view of the Jag diff head. My Diff head has gone across to Bill Dobbin who is going to rebuild the diff head for me. First he'll pull it apart like this diagram so I can get replacement bearings and of course have the diff head all painted up before it goes back together.

You'll se I have highlighted a part orange here too. This is the back cover of the diff head and I will be upgrading that to a more fancy looking alloy one. Thats shown in the next picture but is missing the back cover as it is getting some work done on it. I'll show you more of that later.

So there you go....still plenty to do. Sorry but it won't be getting assembled for a wee while yet, but keep watching!

Metals that react

You may all have seen a comment posted by a mate Adam Johnson against my last blog on the Rear axle universals.

I am looking at making aluminium caps to cover up the ugly circlips on the universals and Adam was concerned that the metals might react and give cause to ugly corrosion. I have seen this myself where Aluminium forms a nasty white powdery substance when it is in contact with other metals. I have to admit Adams comment did get me thinking, so I made a point of finding out a bit more about it.

After reading a fair bit of material I think it goes something like this……the higher the activity of the metal (faster oxidising) the more the metal will take on an increased rate of corrosion when in contact with a lower activity one. So in other words a faster rusting metal will rust even quicker if it’s put with a slower rusting material.

So what is the order of activity…..faster rusting to slower rusting?

·         Francium

·         Caesium

·         Rubidium

·         Potassium

·         Sodium

·         Lithium

·         Strontium

·         Calcium

·         Magnesium

·         Aluminium

·         Manganese

·         Mild Steel

·         Zinc

·         Chromium

·         Iron

·         Cadmium

·         Cobalt

·         Nickel

·         Tin

·         Lead

·         Copper

·         Silver

·         Mercury

·         Gold

·         Platinum

But I hear you say Aluminium is good in the elements and it doesn’t rust, so why is it toward the top of the list? Actually Aluminium corrodes very quickly, in fact as soon as it makes contact with air, but the main reason it isn’t ordinarily destroyed very quickly is a quirk of its oxidation product, aluminium oxide (aluminium rust) adheres with extraordinary tenacity to pure aluminium, so if nothing else is present, an aluminium object will last nearly forever, protected by its own oxide.

In contact with other metals though, aluminium can be destroyed quickly as Adam has witnessed in the past. This will be sped up if there is an acid anywhere nearby like sea water or maybe even rain water that has contaminants.

Apparently in the old days steel ships used to sink at sea as the sea water used to speed up the reaction between the iron rivets and the steel hulls and would literally dissolve the rivets. To overcome this they strapped a block of zinc on the hull which becomes a sacrificial anode. A sacrificial anode is a block of metal that is more reactive than the metal it is protecting. The more reactive a metal is the easier it gives away electrons. This reactive block of metal on ships acts as a source of electrons for the iron. When oxygen takes electrons from the iron during the process of rusting, iron atoms simply take electrons from the reactive metal in this case zinc, so the block of zinc corrodes and the ship and its rivets don’t.

Similarly you might think Chromium is not far down the list either so why doesn't it rust or corrode? Look again at the list though, mild steel which chrome is applied to is toward the more active end of the list, so what happens is the mild steel actually donates its electrons to the chrome. When ever you see a rusty bumper on a car its not the chrome that has corroded its the mild steel underneath.

So yes this does mean the aluminium caps I propose making for my axles could in fact go white and powdery, as they will corrode more quickly than the chrome and the mild steel they are attached to. But....is this a bad thing? Actually no and for two reasons…..its a hot rod and polishing will be regular so should protect things to a great extent but also this faster corroding aluminium will act as a sacrificial anode to the chrome and mild steel axles, so in effect, as I see it, it will stop the chrome rusting.

Now I can afford to replace a few aluminium caps if they start to deteriorate (or maybe even just repolish them), one things for sure though, that’s a whole lot cheaper than re-chroming the rear end.

Thanks Adam for raising the point it made me look into it and I know more now that I did this time yesterday! I guess only time will tell now as to whether or not I am correct in my assumptions. It must be true though I read it on the internet!

Rear Axle - Jag Rear Overhaul - Part 3

Hi all, I've been away on a long holiday in Europe so there hasn't been any activity for a while, but I guess you will have noticed that.

Anyway I'm back into it now with renewed enthusiasm and the focus is on getting the chassis rolling again as I have been asked to put the project on display at Kumeu January next year. This will be a lot easier to achieve if the whole thing is on wheels, which means finishing off the Jag rear.

You will recall I had many of the components chrome plated (so it should be a real feature of the car when done, but all that bling would be a complete waste of money if the mechanicals weren't rebuilt as well, now its time to start the rebuild/reassembly.

First up I purchased 4 universals via Peter Farrant at Auckland Balance and then had him install these. I have prepared a short video so you can see the part I am talking about, how it works and what is involved.

Now that is very simplified. The reality was quite involved. Its not easy getting press fit parts like this to come apart (thanks to Bill Dobbin for his help with that before I got all the chroming done) and a lot of patience is required when reassembling too. This was made all the more difficult by the fact that the holes where the universals get pressed into had some chrome in them. This is a problem for two reasons, firstly the tolerances are so tight that a layer of chrome means things just don't fit. Secondly chrome peels once its damaged so if the cups being pressed in broke away a piece of the chrome, that tear would just keep running and basically ruin the chrome plated finish.

To overcome this it was necessary to have the holes carefully machined to remove the excess chrome first. Then it was possible for Pete to put all the bits together. The machinist and Pete both did a fantastic job. Here is the final result. Very happy!

The next step will be to have some alloy caps machined to cover the ends of the bearing cups and the circlips. This will dress the axles up even more. Watch for an upcoming blog on this.

Oh well I should go now....potentially a big day tomorrow with the certifier coming for the first inspection and to get the build onto the certification register. I'll let you know how that all went in my next blog.

Memory Accessories - Wiring

You will recall in my last post that I had discovered the steering column I have is the full memory item that can remember where a driver had it positioned in terms of height (tilt) and in terms of closeness to the driver (tele) and that once I found this out I went on a hunt to get the entire memory setup that went along with this.

This full memory setup also includes the outside wing mirrors, the seatbelt shoulder height adjustment and the drivers seat position (up/down, forward/back, recline and headrest height).

Well after spending 44 hours (the equivalent of a working week and a Saturday morning) last night was it…..the moment of truth.....I finished hooking up wires and decided to go live…….I put fuses on everything and made sure the power pack was within reach so I could kill the power if required. I also had the fire extinguisher at the ready……just in case……..so how did it go?

No worries at all, apart from the drivers seatbelt adjuster which stops and starts and won’t work on memory. It may just need a clean I think and is likely to be more of a mechanical issue than an electrical one I think. Also the drivers headrest is not travelling up and down freely. Again this will be mechanical so will be fairly easy to sort out.

So all in all I am stoked with the outcome.

Here's a couple of video's you can watch to see it all going.

General - Parts Collection - Again!

I have been doing nothing but wiring lately. Clocking up a fair few hours comparing actual wires with diagrams (that have been kindly supplied by Phil Bradshaw) and painstakingly labeling them all so that when the car starts coming together it is a bit like paint by numbers or join the dots.....well at least thats the theory.

Here's a pic of me trying to sort out the steering column.

It was while doing this and trying to reconcile the wiring for the tilt and telescope function, that I realised the column was the full fruit option. It has position sensors that work by putting out a signal that is read by the steering column computer. This enables a particular position to be memorised and of course this means you can have a couple of settings for different drivers.

I hadn't been that bothered that I didn't have memory seats but now that I have a memory steering column I decided to learn a bit more about it. It turns out that these Lexus had memory drivers seat and memory side mirrors and memory seat belt shoulder positions as well as the memory steering column.

So what all this means is you can adjust your seating position, the sterring wheel position, the side mirrors for your visibility and also the top mount of the seat belts so that they are comfortable and don't rub on your neck etc. You can then have the car memorise this so that if someone else drives the car and changes everything about, you can go back to your own personal preferred settings, without all the hassle of trying to remember how it was and playing around for ages trying to get it just right again.

Now I have to say I was at a point where I kinda couldn't be bothered having to rework the seats and maybe give up on the work I had done with the mirrors. And adjustable shoulder seat belt mounts weren't a big deal really, so why would I go to all the hassle........but this kinda thing eats away at me and I just know if I don't do this now it will be something I wish I had done and that I would regret later on......so the search began for a donor car!

As luck would have it I came across a Lexus LS400 that was about the same years as the donor car that my engine came from, so plans were made to go on a 2 1/2hr drive to Cambridge to see the car and meet Simon, its owner, to see if we could strike a deal for some parts if they were at all suitable.

Well it turned out to be a great find. It had all of the right goodies and a few more that I didn't even know about like mirrors that vibrate to shake the water off them! No I am not kidding!

For those of you that have been reading my blogs for a while you will know I think that the BMW seats I had were a big deal to me as they had electric headrests.....guess what.....this car has them too......only better as they have memory sensors too so they can be set to the drivers preference as well. Yeah okay I am a bit excited now!

Anyway, Simon turned out to be a great guy and gave Roger and I a free reign to grab what we wanted. Whats more the car was in the shed and it was a crap day, so we weren't going to have to fight the weather to get this done. Everything that could go right was going right!

Here is a pic of the donor car. Engine is long gone and so are most of the accessory bits under the bonnet. The dash is gone too but all the auto and memory stuff was in tact.

This is it from the side. It was hard working on it as the suspension had been raided and this meant the car was about 2 inches off the ground and I am getting far too old for groveling around on a concrete garage floor for a whole day. Man am I sore as I write this. It was what it was though and I am immensely grateful for the fact that what I wanted was there and available.

Here's Roger helping me out. He is a bit sore now too and is going back to work tomorrow for a rest he reckons. It took us 6 hours to raid everything so thats 12 hours between us. She's a pretty big job!

This is Simon the owner of the car. A real good bugger! Thanks Simon.

This is the total collection of the bits we got.

Did you see what was there? Yeah that big plastic box there in the foreground.....yes that's right it is another aircon unit. I know, I know....I spent hours on that Celica one, why the hell would I want another one?

Well it isn't any better than the Celica one......but it does mean I have a matching set now though. The aircon core matches the compressor and the wiring matches the looms and diagrams I have. I am hoping this means it will be a lot easier to work out than the Celica one and in the long run I think having everything compatible will be a better proposition.

Whats more the BMW seats and the Celica aircon will be a great start for the next hotrod project which will be a car for Janine, my wife.

Anyway that about sums up how to waste a Sunday.

Thanks Roger, I couldn't have done it without you.

Steering Column - Wiring

Its been a bit cold lately and the prospect of going outside in the weekend to muck around with more fibreglass wasn't an attractive one......yeah okay I'll admit it, I am a bit sick of doing the fibreglass......but hey the prospect of sitting on the carpet by the heater was a bit of a no brainer.

No brainer decision yeah, but the job at hand wasn't. I have burnt a few brain cells on wiring as you will recall from my blogs about the wiring for the aircon, and I am about to burn some more with the steering column.

The column is out of a Lexus and I have chosen it as it has a few of the high tech options I wanted. It has an electric telescoping action (you can bring the steering wheel closer to you when you are sitting in the car) and it has electronic tilt (you can raise or lower the height of the steering wheel when you are sitting in the car). In addition to that it has tilt away, which means when you turn the car off the steering wheel tilts up and out of the way to make it easier to get in and out of the car. Then when you turn the key back on the steering wheel goes back to where you had it. Pretty cool huh?

Another feature is that it has an auto position on the headlight stalk so that I can have a light sensing unit that will automatically activate the headlight circuit when it gets dark.

Oh and another thing it has the cruise control stalk as I will be hooking up the cruise control too.

All in all there are 36 wires I need to work with.

Here is a pic of the column. It is sitting on its end flat on the steering wheel.

This is another view now laying roughly as it would in the car.

Here you can see a close up of the Ignition key and mechanism. This will all go as it sticks out too much for one, but also I intend to run a push button start.

This is a small electric motor that drives the in and out telescoping motion.

This is the other motor that drives the up and down tilt motion. This tilt function has a position sensor that notes the position of the column before you turn the key off. This is stored in a small computer (yes there is a computer for the steering column) so that it can restore the column back to the same position once the ignition is turned on again.

This next pic shows the cruise control stalk. This is mounted to the steering wheel.....oh and in case you were getting concerned, no I won't be keeping this steering wheel, I have a billet aluminium one I will be using with a half leather wrap. I'll show you that another day, but rest assured it won't be this Toyota/Lexus one.

Here is another view from what would be the driving position. You can see the wiper and indicator/headlight stalks.

Now to help sort out the wiring Phil has given me a number of diagrams from which to try and sort out the circuitry. 

As I have found before though, these don't seem to line up with what I have but they share some generic principals. The problem is these are way beyond my wiring experience. This is mostly because the Japs do things so much differently to the old style wiring I was brought up with. It isn't impossible to get your head around but for me at least I need someone to go through it with me so that I can get the gist of what is going on. Its just not so logical.....well at least not until I have it explained to me.

On this note I am forever thankful to Phil Bradshaw who is very knowledgeable about this and also because he has prepped all my engine wiring and incorporated a lot of the ancillary circuitry like lights,  indicators etc using Toyota principals. So of course it makes sense to integrate into that which has already been created.

I did have a crack at trying to come up with a wiring diagram for the headlights much to Phils disgust. He has promised to come and smack me around the head and reset my wiring skills to Japanese when he is next in Auckland.

To give you an idea how different it is......my experience is this....

A wire goes from the battery to the light switch. When the switch is in the on position it makes a circuit that allows the power to go down another wire to the light bulb. The bulb is earthed to the chassis as is the battery and thus a complete circuit is made and your light goes.

Now this is the Japanese version of the same thing as provided by Phil. 

12 volts from battery goes thru white wires to separate 10 amp fuses for left and right headlights. This is so if one fuse blows you still have the other headlight.

Wire from fuses changes to B and L respectively.

These wires end up in the headlight looms and need to be connected to the common terminal on each headlight bulb. Therefore the headlights always have power to them.

The headlights are turned on depending on what is earthed from the bulb. Dip beam is a white wire (for both left and right) and high beam is a red wire (again for both).

These red and white wires both go to the dip/main change over relay, with the dip wire (white) going to the normally closed terminal, the red wire to the normally open. Thus the default position is low beam.

When the dip switch (separate  twin core wire with black over sheath) red wire (connected to your dip/main switch RL1 wire) is switched to ground it trips the relay to switch from low beam to high beam.

The main beam indicator lamp should also light up.

But - Note the lights won’t actually go as yet because the headlight relay(and hence the light bulbs) isn’t connected to ground.

Back to the hi/lo beam relay – the output of that relay is a wire that runs into the normally open terminal of the headlight relay.

This relay is closed when the Green ‘headlight relay trigger to ground’ is connected to the  R wire in your headlight switch.

The park lights are also fed via a fuse and relay, with the relay triggered when the Brown ‘park light relay trigger to ground’ wire is connected to the GW park light wire on your light switch.

You won’t have headlights unless the park lights are turned on.

Or in other words 

バッテリーから12ボルトは、左右のヘッドライトに10アンペアのヒューズを分離するためにスルー白い線を行く。これは、まだ他のヘッドライトを持つようであれば1ヒューズが切れます。

ヒューズの変更からBとLにそれぞれ配線してください。

これらのワイヤはヘッドライトの織機で終わると、各ヘッドライトの電球の共通端子に接続する必要があります。したがって、ヘッドライトは常に彼らに力を持っています。

ヘッドライトは電球から接地されているものに応じてオンになっています。ディップビームは白い線（左と右の両方）とハイビームでは赤線（再度の両方）です。

これらの赤と白の線が両方のディップ線（白）が正常に閉じられた端末は、通常、オープンに赤線に行くと、リレー上のディップ/主な変更点に移動します。したがって、デフォルトの位置はロービームです。

ディップスイッチ（シース上に黒を持つ別のツインコア線）赤線は（あなたのディップ/私は疑うメインスイッチRL1線に接続されている）、それが旅行のハイビームをロービームに切り替えるためのリレーをグランドに切り替えられたとき。

いくつかのマジックは私の配線内で発生し、メインビームのインジケータランプも点灯します。

しかし - ヘッドライトリレー（したがって、電球）をグランドに接続されていないため、ライトは実際にはまだ行くことはありません注意してください。

バックHI / LOビームリレー - そのリレーの出力は、ヘッドライトリレーのノーマルオープン端子に実行線です。

グリーン地面にヘッドライトリレーのトリガーが"あなたのヘッドライトスイッチでR線に接続されている場合、このリレーは閉じられます。

公園のライトは、ワイヤブラウン"地面に公園のライトリレーのトリガ'はあなたの光スイッチでGW公園光の線に接続されているときにトリガリレーと、ヒューズ、リレーを介して供給されます。

私はそれを正しく配線している場合は、公園のライトがオンになっていない限り、あなたはヘッドライトを持っていません。

Believe it or not Phils description does make sense to me now that I have traced the wires on the column and thought it through in conjunction with his notes, so thanks immensely Phil.

On that note I have committed to Phil to never again try and create a wiring schematic but that instead I will identify which wires are activated by different switch positions and then incorporate that with his explanation as to how that will fit with the wiring he has already prepared for me. One good thing Phil at least its all Toyota so far!!!

Anyway back to my part in all this. I have a circuit tester that is battery powered and is sometimes referred to as a multimeter. It has many uses which I won't go into here, but one of its functions allows it to be switched to give an audible tone when you have a circuit. 

So what i can do is touch the black terminal (The black handle with the metal spike coming out of it) to a wire and put the headlight switch to the park light position for example. Then I use the other red terminal from the tester to touch other wires coming from the headlight switch. Once I find a wire that makes a circuit the meter beeps. Thats one circuit found.

You really need more than one pair of hands to be able to hold the two terminals and operate the switches at the same time. The cat is clearly interested. I wonder if I can get him to hold the terminals while I operate the switch.......

Samson.....Saaaamsoooon.....here pussy, pussy!