Hapy Electrical Fix and Planning

A few weeks ago, I rotated the headlight switch clockwise and that caused a short that allowed a wire to release it's smoke. Today's post covers that resolution, with some expected twists and closes with a plan to update the fuse box.

Poof

72 bus wiring diagram

First, I accept that what happened was entirely my fault. I turned a push-pull knob, and the housing was loose so I created a short. At first, I thought I had grounded a pin on the back of the switch. Based on the wire which fried, I'm not so sure, but the grey wire fell off of pin 58. That wire fall was what caused the running lights to not function: they tie into fuses 1 and 2 which control them. It wasn't wire 58 which fried.

So, I dug into the interweb. I found another person who had the buzzing noise from their flasher relay and they discovered the root cause was that the dashboard did not have power. Sounds about right, I suppose, so we remove the dash to see. The dash removes with 4 screws. If you are fortunate enough to have the vent and oily-smelling-air controls, you may need to manage them first. I have the older style controls which originally had the little colored spring-loaded clips. Of course, Hapy didn't have the colored clips, and still doesn't. Anyway, remove anything from the vent control levers which impede the dash removal, remove the 4 screws and detach the speedometer cable. Then, the dash lifts straight out (a little diagonal) to the steering wheel. At that point, I rotate it so the face points to the floor. To me, this puts the least pressure on the wires while exposing them for me to see. From here, I could see that the black wire from fuse 12 that delivers 12V to the dash had it's plastic casing melted off. How and why that wire fried rather than popping the fuse, I don't know. The fuse was and is still there, it was relatively new (like, in the last 5 years), the right rating and it was seated properly.

Clumsy

1 fried wire

Knowing which wire needed to be replaced is a great first step. Getting that wire replaced without negatively impacting anything else in the original electrical system, however, is a virtually impossible task. Such was the case this time. First, I pulled the wrong wire out of the fuse box, and as I did, I dislodged a couple of fuses. Then, I got the wire back in and dislodged some other ones. Finally, I found and removed the bad wire from the fuse box, bumping a wire out of the high-beam relay holder as I did. Neat.

I formed a new multi-female-spade-connector wire, using the fried one as a pattern. With a multi-meter, I confirmed the connectivity between all of the end points had 0 resistance and returned to Hapy's driver seat. I plugged the wire into the tabs on the dash, and dangled it behind, finding the tab in the fuse box. Again, I unsettled a few fuses, but once they were in place again, I started testing. First, I confirmed that the running lights and headlights came on. It being daytime, I could tell the lights were on, but not that the headlights were the high-beams. I turned the key to run and the buzzing was gone. The turn signals worked, the hazards worked, and continued to work when I turned off the key. I even test started the engine to prove things were good. What I didn't test: the wipers. It seems that when I was messing around with the fuses, I failed to reseat fuse 11 (which controls the wipers and the rear defogger) after reseating what felt like all of the others -or- another wire fell off. I didn't discover that the wipers didn't work until I tried to take a drive at night in the pouring rain. So much fun. I don't think Hapy likes the winter weather very much; he does seem quite persistent in staying in the driveway.

About Had It

So, after spending so much time diagnosing issues only to discover the issue was the 50+ year-old fuse box or really the style of fuse used in the 50+ year old fuse box, I have decided to look into replacing it. I say that because the wire that fried was on a fuse that didn't blow and the fuses are in the box so loosely now they become disconnected simply by brushing past them. Based on my research, I understand the fuse-box layout / purpose to be this table below. I will replace with a simple 12-slot 12-independent-circuit box that uses spade fuses instead of the old buss style. It will ultimately use the same circuit numbers as before for all of the things I am keeping (never had ambulance fans, nor ignition buzzer, nor interior lights). Plus, it will include things I need, like radiator fans and the fan for the heater.

Fuse #	Original Purpose	Changed Purpose
1a	front running lights, license plate light
2a	rear running lights
3b	passenger low headlight
4b	driver low headlight
5b	passenger high beam
6b	driver high beam
7*	open? looks like it was for ambulance fans	radiator fans
8*	emergency flasher and interior light	emergency flasher only
9*	ignition buzzer, rear interior light	interior heater fan
10#	horn, brake light warning switch/light
11#	windshield wiper, rear defogger	plus the windshield washer pump
12#	dashboard, emergency flasher
	rear backup light

a: supply-side from light switch

b: supply-side from headlight flasher (dimmer relay)

*: always hot

#: switched

&: inline fuse not in fuse box

I will be adding a master circuit-breaker as well back by the starter (where the main 12V source for the fuse box comes from) so there is a safety on the entire #30 circuit that goes to the ignition and the head light switch via the supply-side of the always-hot fuses. I do not know when I will get after this, though. The joy I have had since removing the rat's nest of wires for the engine control has been significant. The wires for the original bus have their problems, and I will be replacing some of the runs (particularly the rear tail lights), but for the most part, they have been up to the task. I just need to find a way to stay somewhat dry and maybe a little not-freezing so I can get after it. Since it is January, I recognize my opportunities for something this big will probably not appear for a while. Still, I can't keep letting smoke out of the wires, and I would very much like to get Hapy out of the driveway for a safe drive-around before spring. For the Pacific NorthWest, that starts with getting the wipers working again and then getting the high-beams turned off.

That's it for today. Thanks, as always, for following along-

Hapy Test Flights

After a fall/winter/spring of making modifications to Hapy, we took him for a test spin. Today's post covers that, the discoveries made and resolved and then another test drive.

The Changes

First, off, let's recap some of the changes since we last drove Hapy. Recall, that last run was a drive to Cornelius after resolving the stammer by cleaning up the vacuum lines and appliances. That was our last drive (except for the decibel tests) in those loaned-by-GratefulEd seats. We now have Sprinter seats. The old flooring was removed, CLD, jute insulation and MLV was laid in it's place. Of course, we have sound deadener all over and the stereo is operational (it was before, it's just better). On the mechanical side, the engine has a "cold" air intake now and there is a rear sway bar for handling. It is a different feel. More different, I think, is my familiarity with driving him. I have been driving GoRo (the Audi A4) and ToyoTruck, which are much more modern. So, my frame of reference is a little off and the Sprinter seats sit much higher, so I have to lean over to reach the stick now, especially when pulling away from a stop sign. I find myself hunched, and twisted to look left for oncoming traffic. Regardless, I think it will take a few drives to re-acclimate to driving the old bus. Looks like there will be more bus driving ahead. Sweet. One thing worth noting, I think: again, for the entire drive (albeit a short one), we didn't have the stereo on. Funny how much effort I put in and how little it gets used on the road. There is just something about riding in the bus that lends itself to no radio, and carrying on a conversation instead.

The Drive

On to the drive! Hapy started right up like he had been driven the day before. The throttle is super responsive, and the engine drove like a champ. He still doesn't like 2nd gear, but I haven't done anything to address that (it might be my install of the Scat short-throw shifter). The overall low-end drone is MUCH quieter, but some rattles remain, especially the screens in the jealous windows. I probably have them installed incorrectly (this video shows correct). Hapy still stops well, and he takes corners WAY better. There was almost no sway around street corners; of course, we did not drive very far nor very fast. We simply drove to a nearby park, played with the dog and returned home by way of the local c-store for some ice cream on a stick. The combo oil pressure / temp gauge still works great, and we did not throw any codes. While we didn't get above 35mph, the sound inside the bus never grew so loud that we couldn't talk at a conversational level. We could not hear the hum of the tires at all, and we really did not notice the sound of the engine. We could hear it, sure, but it was not as ever-present as it used to be. Recall, I used to describe the noise while driving the bus like sitting in an old metal shed next to a running a diesel generator, in a wind-storm. It is definitely not like that around town. I will execute a full decibel test lap to test the noise at highway speeds, but first, there are some things to fix.

The Issues

First, the exterior lights continue to produce phantoms. The brake pedal causes a bunch of the exterior lights (like the front running lights?) to light up, but not both brake lights. Also, the turn signal doesn't work when the brake pedal is pressed. No pedal and no running lights on... and the blinkers work. I remembered that I had the exact same experience when I took Hapy on that decibel test drive (buried in the Hapy Noises - Part 2 post). So, nothing I did over the winter caused it, but nothing fixed it either.

Probably equally important, the fan switch no longer triggered the fans to fire up. After we returned home, I found that one of my wiring bits had become disconnected. While repairing, I noticed how hot the wires would get during testing, and decided that I had gone too thin a gauge in some areas. So, I replaced the merged fan ground wires with individual 14ga grounds, and improved the supply-side to 14ga as well. The fans now both work, and the wires are air temperature.

The speedometer didn't work. I must have disconnected the speedo to get into the dash at some point over the winter that I don't remember and failed to reconnect it. This took no brainpower, just lots of patience opening up the dashboard, and trying not to upset any of the wiring back there.

We dropped into that awful 1200RPM limp mode right before we shoved off, but it only happened that one time. Believing I had fixed that before, this was especially frustrating. I must have bumped the wiring connection at the pedal while installing the jute and MLV. I checked those connections (pressing the joint-points firmly between my fingers), but nothing felt off. After multiple drives since, Hapy has not dropped into that 1200RPM limp mode again. 

Last, Hapy had not yet received his annual Spring cleaning (after-photo is at the top). So, he had a blanket of pollen on his pop top, moss on his window seals / windshield wipers, dull looking paint and dirty windows. The spring wash is the biggest of the year, taking a couple of hours, but it is so worth it.

Exterior Lighting Diagnosing

I have tried so many times to figure this out, and so many ways, but I had not been successful. I won't list them, but between resistance and voltage testing everywhere, running test wires the length of the bus, and replacing things, I thought I had tried everything. This weird brake light thing had been a recurring phantom for years, practically since I first did the engine swap. One of the frequent causes for the issue to return after being gone for a while was a remove/install of the battery. This always seemed strange. Sure, the battery is part of the electrical system, but why would it re-conjure an electrical ghost? It occurred to me this time around that the old 20-pin diagnosis plug is back by the battery. Perhaps my incomplete removal of that plug and related wires is a contributing factor?

Unable to determine this through my prior methods, I did something completely different. I removed the tail light assemblies from the bus, letting them loosely hang in the body holes. I took a different 12V auto battery, and ran a test wire from its ground post to the body ground point next to the main on-board battery. Using a fused wire, I touched various light circuits to see which ones worked as expected and which did not. All of this time, I had believed the issue was in the passenger tail-light: it is the light fixture closest to the battery, so I thought I was bumping something while installing the battery. Nope. The tail-light circuits would fire the correct lights. When I ran the same test on the passenger light fixture, lights were batty like I described above.

I checked the wiring diagram related to the driver tail light, and noticed that there was a tie-in between it and the battery location: the old test plug circuit. The yellow circled 9, 10 and 12 which tie into the driver tail light all correspond to the pin numbers in the plug. I knew that the running light was the one that was lighting up in-error, so I figured that red wire was the compromised one. I cut it off at the tail light, and the phantom behavior ended. Both brake lights illuminate when I step on the brake pedal, and all the running lights light up correctly (and only when I turn on the lights, not when I step on the brake).

 

I ultimately cut off all of the wires going into that old diagnosis plug at the plug, and cut the diagnosis wire from the passenger-side rear turn signal. I will probably have to go back into the driver side and cut off the remaining diagnosis wires to make sure I have really exorcised the electrical demons.

Victory Lap

With the brake lights working, the speedo showing speed, the fans firing and the body looking clean, Hapy and I were ready for a test. I figured that I had numbers for the test lap around the neighborhood from last Fall (documented here), so combining a test lap with a decibel collection made sense. Other than all of the changes I made for sound containment, there were no only other variables. Well... I took one lap, but it started just pouring rain, so I took another one. After that one, I realized that I did not know which "filter" to use on the reader because I didn't document that. I know I made a choice last time, though. Still, I think the test was valid enough for my not-terribly-scientific method. This time, I just used the default "A" filter. I did one last lap, but discovered at the end that I had failed to start the dB recording. Sigh...

Fall 2021 (pre-sound absorb) test:

Sitting at idle (900 RPM): 60dB

Around town (less than 40mph): 65dB +/- 5dB. 75dB peak

On the byways (above 40 but under 55): 65dB +/- 10dB

Spring 2022 (post-sound absorb) test:

Sitting at idle (900 RPM): between 55db and 60dB

Around town (less than 40mph):  60dB - 65dB. 70dB peak during highest-rev

On the byways (above 40 but under 55): 65dB - 70dB

Looking at those numbers, I am not impressed, nor do I expect you to be. That was a LOT of work for not much gain. I hit my original goal of dropping the overall sound and the peaks by 5dB, but after the initial drive-about experience, I was expecting more. Again, I need to remind myself that 5dB is actually a large span. Consider, 60dB is normal conversation and 70dB is a running vacuum cleaner. That is a huge difference for an increment of 10. Also, consider that in the link I used for sound level references, it includes "passenger car" at 70dB. So, if my drive around the smaller test loop only peaked (and even then only twice) at 70dB, then Hapy is quieter than a typical passenger car inside. Okay, maybe I'm feeling a little better about it. One last thing to consider.... if I used a different filter last time, then the numbers collected last time should have been much higher, or my efforts were a complete waste of time and money. Since the perceived noise is so much better, I am inclined to believe that I used filter A last time too, since that is the default. Here's an interesting link about filters.

 

At this point, Hapy is ready for summer, and it really could not have happened any later. While I intend to circle back on parts of this project, I do not expect to have to take Hapy off the road to do so. Yes, the furnace needs a re-do, the fridge cabinet is still in pieces, neither the headliner nor the carpet is in... he is still ready for camping. So, for the next few months, we are going to enjoy that, and I will be returning my attention to Zed. Last Summer ended with Zed still in primer. I would like to end this Summer with him painted, and ready for interior work over the Fall/Winter/Spring.

Well, that's it for today. Thanks, as always, for following along-

Chasing the Hapy Electrical Gremlins (part 2)

Today continues where I left off with Hapy. Last, I had pulled a cable from the rear to the front, through small openings in the frame. I wired up the accelerator pedal plug into the new cable, as well as the ignition switch. Today, we take the next few steps.

Looking Up at 40F (4C)

Yes, it is still cold. It is December, after all. Now that Thanksgiving is behind us, the holiday music can come out in full force. Meanwhile, I'm dreaming of a not-rat's-nest wiring set up. Though, I suppose, a white Christmas would be pretty great too. We start with getting the wiring up front completely tidied up. I wrapped the exposed wires from the cable with 1/2" plastic wire wrap so it remains one cable almost all the way to the ignition switch. I split off the 6 wires for the accelerator pedal from the main bundle in front of the hand brake (front is front), and wrapped that in another plastic wrap. I ran that bundle behind the accelerator pedal support down to the pedal assembly. I then fed the excess cable down through the floor, leaving a little slack in the cable, but only just a little. The work in the cab is basically done for now.

Underneath

At this point, I slid under the front end and started sending cable back towards the rear. I was only able to get about midway before the original wire clump started to become a problem. See, I reused many of the same pass-throughs that I had used 10 years ago, and pushing the cable back against these wires was really not happening. So, recognizing that the old wires are no longer needed, I removed them. Unfortunately, they were taped to the 4-wire bundle for the brake switch, so I needed to remove that bundle as well. I wasn't using that circuit anyway: it only serves to notify the ECU that the brake has been pressed so turn off cruise control. I am obviously not using cruise control, so all of those wires go. I cleared wires all the way back to the spare-tire well, and confirmed the wire colors on the accelerator pedal circuit: they match. So, while the plug changed after the 1998 New Beetle TDI implementation, the wire colors didn't. Neat.

Lower Rat Nest Tear Down

Original outlet flange

Way back when I first did the swap, I had a Vanagon rear seat heater sitting on the accessory battery tray. That heater blocked from view how bad the wiring snarl was un the engine bay. Once the heater was removed this past Summer, it could have been obvious... if I'd looked. I did at this point in this rewire, and chose to start the cleanup right there. Hidden behind the heater were the relays and other associated wiring for the coolant glow plugs. For those not in-the-know, the manual transmission TDI's delivered with an aluminum coolant outlet flange. That flange had 3 glow plugs to warm the coolant. This flange was on this engine, but the coolant outlet sticks out the wrong side. In the bus, it sticks into the fuel tank. So, I swapped it out for the plastic coolant outlet flange that routes to the sides. Anyway, all that extra wiring and relay box were just sitting there. Were. They have been removed now. I moved a couple of ground wires that were in the middle of everything and then took all of the other wiring and pushed it up through the hole into the spare tire well. The cables that remain in the engine compartment are mostly against the compartment ceiling now. I didn't do much more, because I want the wiring up above to dictate how much more I do.

Research Again

It has been 10 years since I really looked at this wiring. Fortunately, TheSamba contributor AndyBees sent me a tome of wiring knowledge back then, and since I did not meaningfully stray from his work it will very much help me now. I barely scratched the surface of this documentation when I first did this install, though I did keep it in a 3-ring binder, with the other bus books in Hapy. 10 years ago, my goal was to just get it working and then I planned to circle-back and improve / clean it up. Well, after years of wrestling with the coolant (first leaks, then overheating) and then needing a break from the bus (hence, Oliver, the 1978 MGB), I'm only now getting to this. Based on a few hours of study, I expect I will be able to significantly reduce the remaining wiring. For example, I still have relays and wiring related to the radiator fan controls, even though I have those fans on a dashboard switch. And, of course, I will not be doing cruise control. There will be other discoveries as I go.

This is as far as I've gotten. My next steps are to start eliminating wiring related to functionality I am not going to retain (cruise control, etc). Since Hapy is outside/carported, this may take a while as I wait for nicer (read: warmer) days. We usually get a 50F/10C-degree day here and there. Since Hapy is blocking the garage bay where Oliver is parked, I may get my wrenching fix with some little projects on him when the weather is too cold to play with Hapy. Time, or more like weather, will tell. Thanks, as always for following along. Please stay isolated, and wear your mask / wash your hands when you can't.

Chasing the Hapy Electrical Gremlins (part 1)

In the Summer of 2019, we barely made it home at the end of the Dog Days 333 (See parts 1 and 2). Hapy decided to just not start on command anymore. He was dropping into that modified limp mode and it was happening not just when he was cold, but pretty much at random. I promised him that I would fix it as we sat idling in a Dundee convenience store parking lot while C was in getting us drinks. Today's post starts that "fix it" journey. Before I begin, for my US readers, Hapy ThxGiving. For CoViD's sake, please stay home.

One Last Time

Hapy's usual home

After I finished the priming of all the Zed body panels (See Zed Prime), I moved them into the garage. This freed a covered one-car parking space. I had initially planned to put Nemo back in there and get after his wheel bearings. I decided instead that with the CoViD-19 numbers climbing to all-time highs, maybe it was okay if I didn't have a car that could take me too terribly far. Nemo can get me to the corner store and back; that's plenty until I can get the wheel bearings done.. once I confirm that they are the source of the noise, and it isn't just loud tires. So, I switched it up, and I am instead jumping into the Hapy electrical. I could have gone after this stuff at any point during the nice warm summer. That just wouldn't have been consistent with all the other work that's been done on this beast, so of course instead I chose some of the coldest days this year to do it.

First, I had to get Hapy into the spot. He is usually parked on a tarmac strip at the curve of our driveway so we can see him out our bedroom window. Yeah, we're weird. For any other car, moving it would be a simple effort of start, drive forward, reverse into the spot. Once I got the other cars out of the way, it was his turn, and just like so many times before, he just didn't want to start. I turned the key to start and nothing happened. Sigh. So, I tried to push him. Nope. There's a little dip in the tarmac that he would roll back into. I had to pull him onto the concrete with a trucker's chain around his front sway bar at one end (his front tow hook was pancaked by the prior owner) and around Nemo's front end on the other end. Fun. While I was trying to figure out how I was going to push him back into the covered spot, I lamented out loud to Hapy "why can't you just start one more time?". His response: he started. Of course; good boy. So, I backed him into the covered spot, and turned off the key.

Running Cable

In the TDI retrospective about secondary electrical, I mentioned replacing the single wires I originally installed 10 years ago with a cable. Well, I bought 30 feet (~10m) of 12-wire 16ga cable for this job when I bought cable for the additional gauge (see Oil Pressure and Temperature Part 4). It is not quite as thick as my ring finger as a sealed cable, and it has a nice thick jacket on it. I figured that the computer and rat's nest wiring is on the driver (left) side, as are the accelerator pedal and ignition switch. So, running the cable along the driver side made more sense than running it along the other side. Turned out, I thought the same thing 10 years ago, as the old wire bundle ran that way. I started from the rear, threading the cable through the bottom of the spare tire well and down into the engine compartment. From there, I ran it through manufactured holes in the frame over the rear suspension, along the inside of the mid-section frame rail to the cross member near the new heater location. I pressed the cable through a square hole in the cross-member, under the brake booster and then through another square hole into the area covered by the front belly pan. I had bored a large (~1/2 inch diameter) hole at the very front over the Summer when I routed the heater fan control cable through. I had planned to reuse that hole for this cable, and it fit with very little trouble. I pushed and pulled about 5 feet of cable up through that hole so I could stand alongside the driver seat to do the wiring bits.

Wire Front First

The 12-wire bundle is more than I was really ready for. The accelerator pedal needs 6 of them. The start and run signals account for 2 more and the OBDII signal is the last. The other wires will be used in the future for things like a speed sensor and a glow plug light. Like the extra wire in the cable I strung for the oil temp and pressure for a low coolant warning, I'll get to those later. For posterity (and my own personal reference later), these are the circuits for the 12-wire cable. I will update this as I make changes or discover mistakes:

circuit	wire color	purpose
1	Red	Accelerator Pedal 1
2	Yellow	Accelerator Pedal 2
3	Orange	Accelerator Pedal 3
4	Brown	Accelerator Pedal 4
5	Blue	Accelerator Pedal 5
6	Black	Accelerator Pedal 6
7	Red/Black	Ignition - START
8	Blue/Black	Speed Sensor
9	Orange/Black	OBD-II
10	Yellow/Black	Ignition - RUN
11	Brown/Black	Glow Plug signal
12	Black/Red	OPEN

I started with the ignition, splicing into the existing "RUN" circuit with the new signal wire. I figure the existing stuff (like lights) need power too, so the existing wire will simply feed old circuit #15. For the "START" signal, I just ran the new wire. The old starter signal was pretty batty, but it proved the TDI install was viable. Recall, it ran from the ignition down the old wire to right near the starter where it was spliced into a new wire that ran around the engine compartment to the spare tire hole through a relay to the computer, which then signaled TDI-donor relay to fire the starter... thru a new wire to the starter solenoid. There's like 20' (7m) of excessive and old wiring that I can eliminate. Then, I moved to the accelerator pedal.

Now, recall that I had to swap out the original round-plug accelerator pedal plug with a newer-model flat one after the old fly-by-wire pedal started to short out. I took a picture to help me identify which wire is which at the other end, but because the plug was changed, I expect the wire colors were as well, so when I cut the old wires off, I left about 1/2 inch of flat-plug wire on there so I can compare with the picture (here on the right) when I get to the rear-end wiring.

EDIT: I have updated the picture on the right here and the wiring reference above to reflect the actual circuit numbers in the wiring diagrams to avoid any confusion. Originally, the numbers ran the wrong direction relative to the official wiring schematics.

Even without the change, it was important to consider placement of the cable and the things that were going to be wired into it when I made my cuts to the wires. The ignition, speed sensor, etc are all at the dash where the accelerator is at the right foot. I made sure there was about 3 feet (1m) of cable between the ignition and the accelerator pedal cuts so there is room for cable routing. Also, it was important to pre-route the cable as much as I could so we didn't end up with the cable running in front of the steering column or goofy some other way.

Next

I admit, that doesn't sound like much. I moved the bus, ran some cable and did the wiring at the front end. Still, in sub 40*F (4C) it was a feat getting that much done without going numb. The weather around here is decidedly cold. I accept that I will not be able to get things done on Hapy very quickly, but with him out of the rain, at least it is not completely miserable. Just cold. If I can stand the cold, I will finish up the wire cable in the front by wrapping it with some plastic wrap, and pressing the excess cable back into the belly pan. Then, I'll push/pull the excess back to the rear so I have room to wire up the controls back there, probably leaving me close to 3m of leftover cable. There is a great deal of electrical housekeeping that I have not done back there. I think this is the right time to clean all that up, removing the unnecessary, trimming and mounting, etc so it is nice and clean. And, or course, our sporadic modified limp mode will no longer appear. It's all about staying warm enough to take small steps forward and eventually the wiring will be done. Then, I'll switch to diagnosing Nemo's rear bearings again.

Thanks, as always, for following along. Posts may appear more slowly as my work slows down. I'm still working on it (and staying CoViD safe, of course).

Ignition Re-Assembly

In my last post, I described the tear-down of the ignition assembly of the old 1972 VW microbus. Today's post covers the re-assembly.

Some Part Suppliers Are Better Than Others
I mentioned that I found a bus wrecker in Washington who sold me a lock housing for $75 plus shipping. What I learned when I opened the box was that the lock housing came with an original key cylinder and key. The seller had stored the housing, cylinder and key all oiled up and in a zip-lock baggy. The key works the mechanism flawlessly. They included the small set-screws which hold the housing into the black box. Avery's Air Cooled, you rock. I wish I'd found you years ago. You'll be my first call now.

Lock Cylinder, Housing and Sub-Harness

new plug has exposed
solder so I taped it off

The Bentley has re-assembly instructions. I tried them. They didn't work. The book says to install the housing, then put in the lock cylinder and then, once everything else is in place, install the electrical sub-harness. Yeah.. that last bit doesn't work. The harness is constructed so that the wire bundle comes out to the side, not straight out. In general, that's good, but once you orient the plug to the housing, you realize that the wire bundle comes out the completely wrong way, running almost rear-wards. Holding the housing up with the plug facing you, it comes out around 4:30. Ideally it comes out around 9:00. So, to plug it in, and have it click home, the wires needs to double-back on themselves in a very tight area while you are somehow applying leverage for it to snug in. Physics just won't comply.

So, we do it differently. Before I started, I removed the lock cylinder from the housing and test fit everything. First the harness, then trying the lock cylinder first to see if there were any serious issues with doing the lock cylinder last. Nope. Since the harness was already wired into the bus, all of this was done using the driver seat as a work bench. So glad it's Summer, by the way. I plugged the harness into the lock cylinder and made sure it clicked home. There is only one way to get this all the way seated, with a larger tab fitting into the larger slot and a smaller tab into the smaller. I even tested whether the key, housing and sub-harness would trigger power, so I hooked up the battery and turned the key to the run position. I could hear the click-click of things getting juice, so I considered the test a pass.

Into Darkness

turn signal wire bundle

With the harness in the housing, we now twist into a pretzel to fit the housing into the black box. For reference, consider that the entire steering post, etc had been back together only to discover that the old housing wouldn't work. Recognizing how difficult the tear down was before (3 full days), I wasn't going to do that again. So, the black box is on the steering column with the rubber bushing, and such in place. The housing takes some fiddling to get into the right orientation, in part because the harness is plugged in, but mostly because it is not exactly parallel to the bottom of the black box. It tilts up to the right (towards the key opening). Once the tabs find the slots, you need to press the housing firmly as deep as it can go into the slots while tightening the set screws. This took a few tries, but once it was in the right place and the set-screws cinched down, I could start to see the light out of the dark

Key Lock
With the housing in-place, the lock cylinder can slide home. This is a do-it-once kind of thing. If everything isn't lined up right, and you need to pull the lock cylinder again, its a multi-day job. Things looked good, so I slid it home. It fortunately had no issues.

Other Discoveries
In my case, we believed the ignition fry was caused by either the heat/defrost fan or by the headlight switch. So, I removed the wiring for the heat/defrost fan and replaced the headlight switch. As happens these days, the headlight switch was faulty out of the box. I had to wire both the running lights and the headlights out of the same pin because the pin for the headlights simply didn't work. Also, the new switches don't come with a pin for the idiot-light on the dash, so I wired that into that same pin. Now, when I pull the stalk out one spot, the running lights, headlights and idiot light all illuminate. Nice.

While I was removing wires for the heat/defrost fan, I installed a new switched 12V wire along the same route. Following older VW coloring, I used black, and tied it into the furthest right fuse, the switched 12V for the coil used to come from. Now, when I turned the key to run, I have a nice strong signal for the new-engine electronics. But there was more darkness ahead. I'll get into that next time.

Thanks for following along. I'll wrap this up next time

Ignition Switch Teardown

This will be the first of 2 posts covering the efforts to resolve the damage caused during the electrical fire we had while driving home from 4Peaks (See 4Peaks 2018 - Road Report).

Recall... I looked down and smoke started first as a wisp and then as a billow from between my knees. We were fortunate to have a small road intersecting with the highway, so we dodged onto the shoulder at the corner, turned off the ignition and flipped on the hazard lights. I jumped out to make sure the hazards were on and saw the headlights were lit even though that switch was off. I went around back and removed the positive battery cable, thinking that the electrical was completely borked....

Roadside Findings
As I mentioned in the road report, we pushed Hapy under a tree. While Boo made peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, I twisted into a pretzel between the front seat and the steering column to see what was going on. The wires leading into the steering column were still hot. One of them was down to bare copper wire from just past the fuse box all the way past where my fingers could reach: a goot foot of plastic insulation had vaporized into smoke. I think if we'd gone much further without killing the electric, we would have either fried the battery or had the fire spread into the fuse box. Either could have spelled ruin for Hapy. As I said in that prior post, getting into the electrical solve required a 27mm socket to remove the steering wheel, so we got a tow.

Home-Drive Findings
160 miles (and $300US) later, Hapy was back in his usual tarmac-paved spot in front of the house. With the camping gear removed, and a good night's sleep, I was able to look at what was going on. My initial fears that my entire wiring harness had failed were not realized. I don't think. The sub-harness that runs from the fuse box to the ignition switch, however, was completely toasted. I concluded that the headlight switch was in need of replacing too, since the headlights flickered on the way to 4Peaks and were on without explanation when we broke down.

Extractions
I started following the Bentley to get access to the badness. Bentley documents this fairly well: remove the horn button and cancel ring, remove the steering wheel nut (27mm socket). Using a gear puller, remove the steering wheel, but they don't say anything about pushing the wire for the horn into the steering column. If you don't, the gear puller will probably cut it off for you nice and cleanly right where it comes out the steering column. Ask me how I know.

With the steering wheel off, you can remove the turn signal housing, leaving the turn signal hanging by it's bundle of wires from the black box. The black box is held to a silver support with 4 Phillips bolts. When these are removed, the steering column can pivot at the bottom. So, it is wise to remove the clip-ring, washer and rubber bushing. At least that's what Bentley says. The top of my clip-ring was so full of crap, I couldn't get to it. Also, that rubber bushing had never been off, so it wasn't inclined to move. Fortunately, the ignition sub-harness had burned so badly that it just fell out of the black box. So, the only things holding the steering column and wires was the column base and the wire bundle for the turn signal. The turn signal wires unplugged and the whole steering column came out as an assembly.

I had to loosen the black box from the column thru judicious use of a rubber mallet. First, I cleaned the top, removed the clip-ring and washer and shot lubricant around the rubber. It wouldn't give without a fight. Once apart, I could focus on getting the ignition cylinder separated from the housing. Now, the housing and lock cylinder were also original, so they had become very friendly. The housing removes (with the lock cylinder still attached) by removing these 2 little hidden bolts from within the rear-most bolt holes that held the black box to the silver support. With a little coaxing, the housing will come out with the lock cylinder still attached. The 72 and later (not sure about how much earlier) lock cylinders are held in with a small spring. This spring can only be compressed through a hole through the housing near the end where the cylinder goes in. This spring can also only be compressed if it hasn't been compromised. Mine was. Badly.

Pieces
I tried compressing the spring in the hole with various pokey tools. None would budge it. Lubricants couldn't do it. I finally resorted to drilling the lock cylinder like a safe cracker. It didn't matter. When I finally got the cylinder pieces out of the housing, the housing was unusable. The fire had melted some of the plastic inside and my man-handling of the housing and cylinder had made it's use uncertain. I figured I'd just order another one and be on my merry way. Uh... no. This housing isn't manufactured anymore. It's not on the internet enthusiast site classifieds. I found one on eBarf for almost $180 (shipped), but the seller wouldn't guarantee that it either worked nor that it would arrive within a month. So, I spent several hours hunting down small VW crackers, and found one in Washington who had one and sold it to me. $85US shipped.

Costly costly
So, the running tally for this mishap.... $300 for the tow home. $20 for that old switch I had lying around. $85 for a new housing. $25 for a new ignition sub-harness. I decided to replace the headlight switch, in case that was part of the problem, so add another $25. Add in the $180 for the complete wiring harness I bought but BusDepot won't accept as a return. Add in the $200 spent on a hotel for the shows in Eugene where we intended to camp but couldn't because Hapy was stuck in the driveway. Add $150 for a replacement steering wheel after I chipped my original during the extraction. AND, I haven't even done the assembly yet, so there may be more costs yet to come. Running tally: $785.

I'm ending this post genuinely more optimistic than I sound. This is an opportunity to improve lots of things as I go. The black box and the turn signal housing can get cleaned up so they look nicer. I can upgrade the steering wheel to one of those fancy wood ones for another $100. The key cylinder will be new so turning the key will no longer be a frustrating experience. All told, the ignition control and the area where I spend the most time will be much improved once this is done. Oh, and the engine will start and run again. So that's nice.

Thanks, as always, for following along.

The 80-20 Rule

I'm sure you've heard the phrase 80/20. If not, its a theory that the last 20% of the project takes 80% of your time. No where is that more true than working on old cars. In one of my last posts about the MG, I detailed all of the various things I had done, and how close it was to road-worthiness. Since that fateful drive, I have spent many many hours trying to diagnose the small electrical issues that remain (See Ug-letrical). Today runs through some more of that fun.

Seeing Green

The MGB has 4 major circuits running through 4 fuses. The brown circuit is "always hot". It basically runs from the Alternator to the Battery, providing juice to the headlight switch and power to the hazard relay. Red is for the courtesy lights: side marker, running lights, and license plate. Purple runs the horns, the clock, cigarette lighter and "dome" light. There are 2 lesser circuits: blue-stripped between the headlights and the headlight switch and red-stripped for illuminating the gauges. Everything else is on the Green circuit. Seriously everything else: gauges, wipers, turn/hazard signals, even the reverse lights and radiator fans. So, when there is a break in the green circuit, lots of weird things start to happen. It was odd behavior in this circuit which drove me to replacing the fusebox last fall. On my recent test drive (See MGB - Test Start, Test Drive), most of the things on the green circuit didn't work: wipers, turn signals, tachometer.

Following my own advice, I started with the fuse, and demonstrated to myself that electricity was making it past the fuseblock to the next step in the wiring. Fiddling with the fuse and testing wires must have shaken something free, though, because after simply testing voltage and wiggling wires, the wiper motor started working. So did the cooling fans. So, I started to focus on the turn signals and hazard flashers, recognizing that wire shaking could just as easily cause those things to suddenly stop working too.

taken from MG experience posting

Hazard
The hazard switch is one of the more complicated bits in the MGB electrical system. I covered the early diagnosis of this circuit earlier (see MGB - Ug-lectrical). It has 6 pins coming out of the back, with 4 clustered at one end and 2 at the other. The 2 pins allow voltage through when the switch is in the hazards-are-not-on position. This permits the turn signals to work. The 4 pins clustered together map a brown circuit wire from the hazard relay (into pin #3) to light up the "hazard" light in the center of the dash (pin 4) as well as fire both left and right turn signals (pins 1 and 2).

The Interweb says these switches get crusty and need to be flipped up and down a bunch of times to get them to work again. I tried that, but it didn't work. So, I moved back to testing wires and electrical bits. I thought I'd proven that it was the brown wire which led to the relay, by routing a new wire around it, but I actually proved that the original brown wire wasn't seating. Once I pulled the wire off and onto the relay a few times, the hazards started working.... on just the driver side. I concluded that the switch was faulty. Be forewarned: the new made-in-China switches fail often, and can be short-lived. In fact, the replacement that I got from Moss appeared to have failed right out of the box. Neat.

I shot DeOxit into the plug in which the hazard switch is attached. I took a short stretch of wire and tested the plug, to prove that it was indeed the switch and not the plug. One at a time, I jumpered from pin-hole #3 to holes 1, 2 and 4. The jumpers worked, and I was able to get the dash light and one side and then the other to act properly. This confirmed my suspicions: bad hazard switches, even out of the box. I plugged the originally-on-the-car hazard back in, and tried the turn signals. Now, they worked. So, the DeOxit cleared whatever was wrong on that side, but the hazard part of the switch didn't work. To remedy, I bought a New Old Stock (NOS) part off of eBarf. While expensive at $45, having a hazard switch is a safety item I should not be driving without. Even with the new, proven functional hazard switch, the lights wouldn't flash. The hazard relay, though, made the tick-tick-ticking sound. Now, I've read that the original Lucas hazard flasher relays are a bit touchy. So, I dug around in my electrical stuff and found a bunch of relays from the TDI swap on the bus. One of them matched the pin pattern from my MGB - Ug-lectrical post. With a basic black (black for grounds in British cars) wire grounding pin #31, I connected the wire from the ignition relay and the wire heading for the hazard switch. Viola! We have hazards and directionals!

Stopped
Once I solved the hazards, I moved on to the brake lights. I'd solved these before (See MGB fuse box), but with the work on the pedals and master cylinders, they stopped working again. Knowing what worked last time, I went straight to the brake light switch on the pedal box. With it in-hand, and the ignition turned to run, I pressed the little nub on the end (that lightly rests on the brake pedal arm), and the brake lights lit up. Perfect. This is a basic adjustment issue. I turned the adjustment nut further up the switch. Then, I fit the switch through the side hole and threaded it into the pedal box. I think I got some paint into the threaded hole as the switch started to bind. I cleared the holes with a bolt and re-threaded the switch. I had to employ needle-nose pliers to fully set the switch, but now, when the pedal is depressed about a 1/2 inch, the brake lights fire. I set the adjustment nut down against the pedal box, and one more little nagging issue is solved.

That's it for today. I'm still working through other 80-20 issues and hope to have the MGB ready to put to bed until the rains stop (and my money replenishes) so I can drive it to get a top put on. While I wait for that, I have a radiator replacement I need to do on the bus and C will need a second pair of hands getting the 280ZX road-worthy. And then, there's that broken daily-driver I mentioned last time... its a true target-rich environment.

Thanks, as always, for following along.

bump bump bump

Today is about getting the bumpers and some the lights working. Not terribly exciting stuff, but important.

Blinkers
With everything else going on, when I pulled off the old front blinkers, they were in dire shape. The lenses were filthy and the housings were really worn looking. I tossed the lenses into a "clean me" pile and looked closer at the housings. There was some rust, but behind the bulbs, the shiny stuff had fallen to bits. There wasn't really any "shiny" anymore. I figured I'd just get some new ones, and they were drop-shipped by BusDepot from somewhere in SoCal. The new housings look really nice.

cleaned up blinker

After about an hour with soapy water and a scrubby sponge, I had the orange and clear lenses almost as clean and clear as new ones. With new housing-to-body seals, they fit into place pretty well. The hardest part was getting the old bulbs into the new housing (it was a little tight).

Cabin Lights
As seems true with any re-install, things tend to go slower than during removal. With the interior lighting and secondary battery, this was just as true. Some of the fuses in the fusebox had shaken free. Two of the wires had come undone. One had a splicing completely separate. All easy to fix. Once the fusebox was ready, the grounding cable and red B+ were simple.

Rear Bumper

splash-guard

The rear bumper on the early bay window bus is held to the frame with 2 frame mounts which are held on with 2 15mm bolts each (at the frame:mount end) and 13mm 2 square-head bolts (at the bumper:mount end). These take the bulk of the weight. These mounts also tie into the engine support bar Hal fabricated for me. So, in order to put on / take off the bumper, I need to support the engine with a floor jack. Once supported, I pull the bolts, support one end of the bumper with my plastic (steel scratches) tool box, and thread in the bolts on the other end. Then, switch to the tool box -supported end, and hand thread those bolts in. This is all well and good... until you remember that the early bay rear bumper has splash-guards on the corners. These are lightweight steel panels that rest between the bus body and the bumper to keep tire-splashes from kicking up into the bumper. Or, at least that's the only purpose I can see other than helping to hold the ends of the bumpers up.

The splash-guards need to be installed before you put the bumper on the body, but after the bumper-mounts have been attached to the bumper. There's a small (less than 10mm) bolt that passes through the top of the splash guard into the top of the bumper mount. On the other end, another 13mm square-head bolt passes through the bumper into the splash-guard. There is also one last bolt that passes from under the battery tray into the splash-guard. This holds the ends of the bumper firm.

Last, though I haven't put mine on yet, these early bay buses have an additional strip of steel along the bottom of the bumper called a modesty skirt. It only hangs down about another inch, but it obstructs from view most of the muffler. It's real purpose is probably to reduce the amount of crap kicked up off the roadway by the bus, but it looks pretty silly. With all the weight of the bumper on the skirt, it will bend, so it is best to put this on last.

Front Bumper

still no window, mirror...

Like the rear bumper, the front bumper has 4 main bolts and some smaller bolts near the ends. While there is slightly less weight to manage if you install the bumper mounts to the body first, the whole unit fits better if you install the mounts to the bumper first. Then, as a unit, the bumper goes into place. Hold one end up with the old plastic tool box while you finger-in the other side. Switch. If you can wiggle the bumper, but it is held in the air by the bolts, they're the right tightness. Now, wiggle the bumper until the space between the bumper and the body is uniform at either end. Set the bolts so it can't wiggle as much and switch focus to the foot-step bolts.
These bolts are smaller (13mm. noting a pattern?), and one of mine broke off inside the frame when I removed the bumper before. This leaves 3 bolts to install. Like before, finger them in one at a time. Then tighten by hand. Verify the bumper-to-body spacing and then torque all of the bolts down.

That's it for today. Lots still in-flight, and Memorial Day is almost here! As always, thanks for following along,

Prepping for Paint

While working on the windshield washer effort, I got to thinking about the paint on the front of the bus. Those 2 tiny nozzles were original as is the paint on most of the bus, and the paint is in about as good a shape as those nozzles were: barely functional. So, once I got the washer bits done, I resolved to getting the paint looked at and decided that I was going to prep and paint the nose.

Organization is Key

headlight can rust
from 12 o'clock to 5

One thing that John Muir was always harping about was the need to properly tag and bag your bits an pieces. I wholeheartedly agree. No matter how optimistic you are about spending every spare moment on your project, things come up. There's a Bruin game on tv or there's a freak snowstorm you want to go play (or have to work) in. So, as bolts come off, collect them into zip-lock baggies and write with a Sharpie on the bag what the bits are for. The only exception to following this religiously is when you can thread the bolt back into its originating location (bumper bolts, eg) where they won't get in the way, or lost.

Beyond the baggies, the parts I removed needed to be categorized. Some things, like the front bumper, don't need any additional work done to them except maybe a soap-water wash or a polish. Others, like the headlamp cans need to be rust sanded, primed and painted. A final pile was created for those things which just needed to be replaced because they were beyond rust repair or a replacement was less expensive than trying to save the old part.

Removing the Bright Work

turn signal during removal

I love that British phrase for what we colonists call "the chrome pieces". Bright work sounds so much more refined. Rather than tape off things, I chose instead to remove everything and go deep on rust while I was at it. The front bumper goes first with 8 bolts: 2 each under the doors and then 2 each on either side of the belly pan. I'd hand-painted it with white rustoleum paint (see Front Bumper part 4) about a year ago. It held up okay, but the white looks dirty already. I guess I should have washed it more often. Regardless, I set the bumper into the back of the bus to start the wash/polish pile.

Once the front bumper was off, I pulled the headlight surrounds (one Phillips-head bolt and it pops out), headlamps and the cans. The original cans have rust spots on them, and the body cavities where the cans reside have a little too. Considering the bus is 40+ years old, I thought that was a really good sign. The headlight surrounds went with the front bumper. As I pulled the cans out of the nose of the bus, I labeled which side each can came from. I separated the bolts and spring and put all of that stuff into a single headlamp baggie. The cans started the rust treat pile. Next, I removed the front turn signals. The lenses are good, but filthy (clean/polish pile) but the housings were spotted with rust. I simply touched the reflector with a finger and it started flaking off. So, the turn signal housings started the "replace" pile. The housings were then joined by the fresh-air vent intake: rust appeared on the back/inside, and a replacement is available at busdepot.

stripped of what could be removed
and the sanding started

The last thing to remove (in my case) is the spare tire hanger. Held on by 3 thick screws, the tire mount appears more universal than I'd realized. It had a dusting of surface rust / patina in a few areas, but, again, it was in great shape for its age. Clearly, it wasn't original, though, as I found a sloppy peace sign had been spray-painted on the nose prior to the tire mount being installed. The tire mount went into the rust treat/paint pile and the screws into a baggie.

Now, the nose is ready for paint. Except... the windshield is still in... and won't it look funny if just the nose is painted, and the doors that match up against the nose aren't? The story continues next time.