Esprit S3 James Bond Project car - part 4 - the continued continuation

[Lotusfab]

Managed to find a picture of the missing parts. There should be two of these in line fuse holders. All I have is cut off wires! This picture is from my turbo wiring before I restored it.msybe the brown wires with the holder on are somewhere in the dash amongst all the other wires. I will check tomorrow.

[Lotusfab]

Weird

There are some strange things on this car. No brown wires found even though they leave the fuse box? In addition it has dash speakers like the dry sump and a dry sump engine bay cover. Lots of other connectors that don’t connect to anything in the loom. A very strange removable dash section with behind it bladed fuses and a metal mounting plate built into the dash. Better solution than the cardboard mounted fuse box in the glovebox. May have to strip the loom back and see whats going on. It has bulkhead speakers as well. The heating controls are a mix of am early ca4 and a Turbo.

[Gjk]

Sounds like you’ve got your work cut out with the looms on this car!

[Lotusfab]

9 hours ago, Gjk said:

Sounds like you’ve got your work cut out with the looms on this car!

Yes it has been fun! I got to the bottom of the door warning light problem. All the wires were disconnected when I started. The Turbo wiring diagram doesn’t apply. On this car there are no brown wire inline fuses. The brown wires were going to the alternator. This has only the fuse box fuse for all the cigarette lighters and warning lights. I spent ages diagnosing and reconnecting it all with some strange meter readings. The purple wire was connected to earth, then I realised it was earthing through the bulb in the other door. I pulled the bulb out and discovered no power to the wire. I disconnected the plug in part of the loom and traced the wire all the way to the fuse box where I discovered the blade fuse had blown! 🤣🤣🤣

After sorting that out the door lights came to life! The hazard lights don't work neither do the main lights and the fans. I had a break from electrics and replaced the bush in the gear lever lower rod.A big improvement already! 
This car has the dry sump dash speakers, door speakers and bulkhead speakers. Doesn’t look like the dash ones have ever been connected.

 

[Lotusfab]

Tomorrow I will be looking at why the Hazard warning lights aren’t working, reinstating the rear heated window, getting all 4 headlights coming on  with main beam instead of two and if I have time fixing the cooling fans, That should do for electrics apart from replacing the stereo with a modern blue tooth one.

After this I will be back on the engine bay cleaning, renovating and replacing all of the spade connectors with the gear linkage upgrade.

I am replacing all of the screws as I go with new black ones, theres a lot of corrosion on the old ones. I got 700 screw selection from ebay.

once the engine bay is  renovated I will drive it rebuilding and renovating the suspension one quarter at a time starting with the rear nearside where the upper link bush isn’t too clever!

[Gjk]

Do you know if there is any reason for all these electrical anomalies? Was this car purely built for the bond film and thus not quite like a normal S3? It is all very interesting and an enjoyable read. Keep up the good work 👍

[Lotusfab]

10 hours ago, Gjk said:

Do you know if there is any reason for all these electrical anomalies? Was this car purely built for the bond film and thus not quite like a normal S3? It is all very interesting and an enjoyable read. Keep up the good work 👍

Thanks,

Don’t think it was built for the Bond film. Guess its a pre production first of t he Type 85 cars. I am doing research to find out more. Hopefully we will get some answers in the next few weeks. Will keep everyone updated.

My electrician has printed my wing mirror trim. Hes posting it to me so hopefully pics in next few weeks.

[Lotusfab]

Hazard warning lights now back on line. Switch contacts had moss growing on them!cleaned the contacts with contact cleaner. Wing mirror trim now printed thanks to an STS file donated by a Facebook Esprit group chap. Just needs  a light sand and paint.

Now I am moving onward to the rear heated window which apparently has never worked! 
Shutlines in bonnet 90 per cent better.Easiest fix yet!

[Lotusfab]

Lucas switches

Started to look at the rear heated screen. Heres some pictures of the switch which failed my meter test. You can dismantle it, but be careful the plastic is very old and brittle. Little clips shown here on the top hold it together. You can prise them apart with tweezers. May have to put them in my sonic cleaner,No surprise the electrics are having issues. This is the heated screen switch the Hazard warning had the same issues. I will remove and clean them all.

When you flip the switch the two upper contacts touch the lower two round ones. In this case not a lot happens!

[snowrx]

I never understood the unplated copper contacts on these switches, I guess we were supposed to do a 10year/20,000 mile cleaning?

I would love to have a little pen that plated gold or something inert on these or other electronics.

[drdoom]

47 minutes ago, snowrx said:

I never understood the unplated copper contacts on these switches, I guess we were supposed to do a 10year/20,000 mile cleaning?

I would love to have a little pen that plated gold or something inert on these or other electronics.

Hadn't someone recently posted in regard to the plating pen?

[910Esprit]

1 hour ago, snowrx said:

I never understood the unplated copper contacts on these switches, I guess we were supposed to do a 10year/20,000 mile cleaning?

To be fair, mine are still working after 40 years, so cant grumble too much - I just give the a blast of servisol contact cleaner if they get temperamental