Lighting and dash pt1

Happy New Year blog readers... Another year has started and happily much time was spent in the garage over the Christmas break (and I think all the family are happy with that!).

With the physical installation of the lights on the body it's time to get the wiring installed... I have been dreading this bit a little just because it's a lot of faffing, fiddling, squeezing myself into difficult angles etc. 

As I already had the engine loom installed due to it being the OEM GM one I originally decided to make the loom myself. Having costed up the raw materials it worked out less to get a generic loom made up of the bits I needed and then finish it off myself. 

The key thing with this whether it's a generic or AK made loom is to lay it all out and identify everything and get familiar with the colour coding and then tackle the installation and testing methodically.

Because my lighting loom is generic I completed continuity testing on all the main circuits before putting it anywhere near the car for both functional and switching (when relays used) circuits - this helped sort a couple of undocumented issues which were easily resolved.

Of course being totally methodical does not totally eliminate mistakes - spot the one below - so chuffed I was with connecting up the side repeaters and testing them I'd failed to spot the plug is larger than the hole...

Argghh £&@£&£!!!

Easily resolved I moved onto the headlights. Once I'd deciphered how the BMW column stalk wiring worked, it was a case of completing the relay wiring for headlight switching to make sure the dipped beam goes off as full beam comes on. The result below. 

I'll need to adjust the aim of these because first MOT/IVA test. I've read most testers are quite relaxed about letting you sort these there and then against the machine that tests them so you know you're getting it right.

One of the things about using the Savage type aluminium switches on the dash are that the leds are very bright. Someone on the Pistonheads forum designed a series of circuits to help manage this depending on the sophistication you're looking for. Being a fool I went for the most complex one that allows you to dim the the overall output (adjustable) and also manage the contrast between the switched being activated (bright) and dim for nighttime driving as activated by the sidelights being turned on.

Thankfully this was pretty straightforward and the circuit works brilliantly - I just need to box up and attach to dash permanently.

I shall follow up with a lighting part 2 post when I've got everything else reconnected and post a picture of the switches in action too.

The other thing prior to putting in the loom was to get the dash fitting well around the steering column. 

I finally realised my column needed a bit more trimming before I could be sure it was in the intended position... See below

And then you go at it really slowly trimming away the dash fibreglass to get a close fit all the way round the cowling of the column. Dremel with mini drum sander tool worked a treat for this. I used two pieces of threaded stud rod that I had nuts tightened against the column mounting positions so I could then raise them up and down easily without removing entire thing to allow you to offer up after each pass of the sander.

The 1mm gap around the cowling allows for whatever I cover the dash in after all the holes / instrument trial fitting is complete.