Sunday, December 04, 2011

Electrics, check.

I finally sorted out the vacuum pump/depressor thing, in the end, I replaced the valves from the donor unit instead of trying to change the pulley, too much work and probably I’ll end up with a broken one anyway, too many years in there… I see the diaphragms in good shape, this is the donor, so I’ll keep them around, I may need them later.
This is the refurbished unit, ready to install.
And pictures of it in place, ready to test!
I’ve been working on the electrics too, first, try to find out what the loose cables are and then removing them, I need to sort out the signal lights and the rear left light set, as none of them work. I had to pull the whole dashboard out to be able to see the cables and their connections, at the end, probably I didn’t need that, but it helped a bit plus a clean it out well, that helps too, here you see the in-progress.
And done (for now) pictures.
I want to fix the basics so I can take the Series for a spin, to check how the engine goes when warm and what needs to be done in the dynamic section, I bet at least a tune up of the injector pump and/or maybe injectors may be needed.

What I realized today is that working in the Land Rovers is a hell of a workout, this of course, after finding sore muscles, some of them I didn’t even know they were there :P, but seriously, working in my Land Rovers beats a Gym any day and it’s a lot of fun (well, sometime is frustrating).

As part of the “getting to know each other” phase, I took a bunch of things apart inside, I found the funniest things, like whoever installed the overdrive, did it by “biting” the metal, to make the hole in the cabin…

I’ve also found 100 pesetas, which haven’t been in use since 2001 or so. I guess I got my investment back already :P

Well, the Santana is ready for a little drive around here out of the road, as it hasn’t passed the ITV yet, but I need to test all the new stuff I’ve done to it. So far, the electrics work, although I will need a new brake switch, this one is kind of “moody” and I discovered something interesting, the directional blinkers, are actually in series with the emergency lights, and the old little weird Lucas switch (the one you pull out) can make bad contact, so in short, the one to blame for the blinkers to not work was actually the switch that would go beyond the stop point.. fixed screwing it in, but the plastic is brittle and broke a bit. Also found a loose earth point in the back, reason for having no lights or signals on the back, left side.