Monday 24 November 2014

Electrics

I decided to try to save a bit of money by doing the wiring for the car myself. This sounded like a simple enough idea as this is after all a fairly small and simple car. I am re-using the steering column from the MX-5 so the switches for the headlights, indicators, and windscreen wipers will be incorporated in to the new loom.

Starting at the back I have a loom that incorporates the brake, indicator, reverse, fog, and tail lights, along with the fuel level sender. This is wired back the the fuses and relays mounted on the engine side of the firewall.

Fuse and Relay holders

The loom that runs to the front of the car connects the headlights, indicators, fan, and horn. These are all terminated on connector blocks ready to be linked to the lights when installed. The engine obviously requires a lot of wiring, but this will be kept separate.

The stalk switches from the MX-5 Steering column are wired to a junction box under the passenger foot well. These will control the headlights, indicators, and wipers.

Steering Column

There's a lot more to this wiring business than you might think. For example, the indicators also have to act as hazard lights. The hazards need to be able to flash with the ignition switched off, and the indicators should only work with the ignition on. There also needs to be an indication on the dashboard when the hazard lights are active, so there needs to be two separate flasher units, one each for the indicators, and the hazards.

Wiring and junction box attached to the firewall. A little tidying up to do...

It's been a little difficult to check the wiring with no lights connected but I have managed to test some of them and I am pleased to say that so far all have work as planned. The indicators can only be seen so far on the lights on the dashboard and I don't think there is quite enough load for the flasher units to work properly so the lights just fade on and off. Hopefully that will be resolved when I connect the exterior lights.

The dashboard is now more or less finished. I've wired it on an extra length of cable so to enable the whole panel to be removed and allow access to the wiring and ECU attached to the firewall.

Dashboard wired in. Lights up nicely!

That's where it is at the moment. Rear panel to do, and get some lights on.

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