Can't take you lot anywhere! Poor Sions thread!

(And yes, a Mac comic would be awesome )

V6 Man wrote:As a bearded Suffolk resident of Highland descent put it;

That looks more like a 480 accessory to me !!!

I forgot to mention my other very important new addition to the car:





Thanks to resourceful RJ who managed to find it in one day of looking, after I had spent a year failing to do so!

(Just a shame it's showing about 60,000 miles fewer than it should!)

There you go, it's a waiting game! Just need the rest of the brown RHD bits

Right, time for another update. Today it was such a lovely day I decided to go to the garage and collect the car and do a couple of jobs. First, and crucially, was fitting the new brown speakers:





Very pleased with that, although my high wattage speakers only just about fit in the recess.

I also took the car for a little drive and took some pictures - this is the blistering to the bonnet:







And this is just a nice picture to enjoy! (I really need to get the lights properly adjusted so I can lose the beam benders).




However, there is one new problem with the car - the dashboard lighting occasionally goes crazy, and it looks like I am permanently indicating and have my fog lights on. Also when I do actually indicate, the indicator lights go off! And when I put main beam on, it makes the indicator and fog light glow much more brightly, whilst the main beam light does nothing.

It's happened on a couple of occasions before but it then fixes itself after a few miles of driving. I have checked and the car isn't actually indicating, so it's probably a fault with the instrument cluster.

It was doing it again today, so I decided to swap to a spare instrument cluster. Unfortunately - exactly the same:



I then went for a few miles' drive, and suddenly it all returned to normal again (I was actually indicating when taking these pics to prove the indicator lights now work).




Does anyone have any ideas? It's not a major problem, but I can't imagine that the MOT tester would be very happy if it played up during the test...

earth, earth and err, earth.

I did wonder that, and I hope it is the problem. I will have to get the wiring diagram out and find out where the dashboard earths to.

just look for the brown wires...

That paint blistering looks just like what I've seen, maybe the effect of a car cover but then again Rachel's car had exactly the same without a cover. I'd say it's the paint job at fault, maybe it's where the paint has not bonded with the panel and expansion of air (or some form of gas?) has lifted the paint with heating from the sun or sudden temperature changes. Maybe the cover has contibuted to the effect by acting like a greenhouse. The spots on Rachel's car are much smaller but threre are lots of them, ONLY in the area which was resprayed.

Blistering: http://www.glasurit.com/uk/blistering

Could I just ask for a quick bit of guidance on the dashboard earth please.

I have been working on it today and have found it's the far left wire that is the earth. The wiring diagram says it's dark brown, but i'm fairly convinced it's a fairly fat dull orange wire, but never mind (all the wires are varying shades of beige). It's definitely the earth though, as all the circuits on the dashboard earth to that wire (no 11 on left hand multi-plug).

The problem I have is that the wire very quickly disappears into the fascia wiring loom (along with dozens of others of similarly drab colours). I have no way of tracing it, and I can't see anywhere in the passenger compartment where the wire comes back out of the loom to earth to the body.

Can anyone give me a clue as to where this wire physically earths to? I'm sure it just needs a good clean.

If I can't, I'm thinking the alternative is to cut it from the loom, and earth it manually myself to the scuttle, but ideally I'd rather not do that.

I'll try and have a look tomorrow morning and give you a clue. It's still light outside here, but it is fading fast.

Please be careful though, as last time you took your dashboard apart for me, you broke your speedo cable and I felt very guilty.

I seem to recall that early dash 200's earth the instrument cluster via the clock. I do recall this earth is prone to fail and that the resultant power drop, while not enough to affect the clock's operation, is enough to cause all sorts of erratic instrument cluster problems. Running a new earth wire to clock cures it all.

Now, the above may be the bemused and befuddled recollections of an ageing, drunken fool because it's been a long time since I used to know stuff about 200's and I drink more than I used to, but there is a remote chance I'm right.

Equally, any weird vehicle lighting problems may be due to the bulb failure relay (2" dia circular relay either orange, red, or green) which is to be found hanging down behind the carpet up under the glovebox and thus in a prime position to suffer from damp caused by water ingress due to the early style rubber windscreen seals.

EDIT:

Blast! I was fixating on your 200, when it's actually the 300 you're on about. However, the above may be true.....

V6 Man wrote:the bulb failure relay

Reed relays are a bit posh.