JohnnyB's 'lude

JohnnyB · Post by **JohnnyB** » Sun May 22, 2016 2:13 am

I hope so. My father is lending me his polishing mop next weekend and I am aiming to do the whole car - I'll get some photos

mart609 · Post by **mart609** » Wed May 25, 2016 11:49 pm

Great work. Also need to do this to my carbon roof and bonnet as they're in the same state

89 UKDM BA4 4WS (resto job!) · Post by **wurlycorner** » Thu May 26, 2016 9:17 am

Massive improvement and another big step forward, well done

JohnnyB · Post by **JohnnyB** » Mon Jun 06, 2016 1:24 am

So she failed her MOT on Friday but its not too bad... 2 fails - ABS light not working and battery not properly secured.

Apparently the battery thing is new and I wasn't aware of it... I've not had a battery clamp for years now purely down to laziness on my part - since she doesn't get driven often the battery spends more time on trickle charge in the garage than it does in the car so I took the clamp out to speed up removal and refitting, its also on quick release terminals. It seems I need to make a quick release clamp now too

The ABS light is more of an issue. In the long term I want to remove it, it's been disabled for about 10 years as it's basically terrible

Originally I had wired the ABS dash light in to the CEL so it came on and turned off correctly at MOT time but when I came to put her back on the road last year I discovered after failing the MOT that the CEL light (and hence ABS light) were no longer working. Probably should have checked..! Anyway, I whipped the dash out and wired the ABS light into the TCS warning light instead to get it through. It seems since then the TCS light (and hence ABS light) has also stopped working

Essentially I've broken two fairly important systems

I've got the dash in pieces in the garage and have tested the light cluster, all works perfectly. This means I've either fubarred the ECU or I've had two random wiring loom failures, both occurring shortly after one of my bodges. I'm suspecting it's more likely that I've fubarred a rare P13 3J0 ECU

I've found a replacement P13 3J0 that should be on it's way, I'm yet to test the wiring but it will be nice to have a spare on the shelf in any case. My plan is to cut the wire to the TCS warning light and use a relay to operate the TCS and ABS lamps to prevent overloading the ECU again, I am assuming this is what has happened. The relay operating current is less than that of a dash bulb so I should be ok like this until the ABS gets stripped out completely at some point in the future. It also removes the risk of killing the CEL again, which was a bit silly of me

On a positive note, she goes in to get the offside rear arch replaced and sill repaired a week tomorrow

This does mean I need to fix the other bits and get the MOT done first in order to drive her there

89 UKDM BA4 4WS (resto job!) · Post by **wurlycorner** » Mon Jun 06, 2016 11:26 am

Battery security isn't new, its always been there and nothing changed, so not sure what your mot man is talking about!

That sounds like an awful lot of hassle working around just to get the abs light working, instead of fixing the system itself (normally very simple faults)? What has the actual fault with the abs been all this time?

JohnnyB · Post by **JohnnyB** » Mon Jun 06, 2016 9:13 pm

Oh I could fix the fault, that would be easy. The thing is the ABS is awful, I don't want it to work

It's unpredictable and even when it's working perfectly it's not that good compared to modern systems. I'd much rather be without it and pump the pedal

89 UKDM BA4 4WS (resto job!) · Post by **wurlycorner** » Mon Jun 06, 2016 10:51 pm

Can't say I've ever found it at all intrusive on the lude, tbf! But hey, we all like different things

JohnnyB · Post by **JohnnyB** » Tue Jun 07, 2016 6:00 pm

wurlycorner wrote: Can't say I've ever found it at all intrusive on the lude, tbf! But hey, we all like different things

TBF I'm still pissed it didn't cut in when I wrote the thing off 11 years ago

Anyway the replacement ECU arrived today and my CEL light now works again, confirming my fears that I've damaged the other one. On a positive note I can now sort the thing out and get it through the MOT, fully functional again

Minor change of plan, I'm going to use the TCS Off light instead of the TCS warning light to trigger the ABS light, that way I can turn it on and off with the TCS button too and it'll look like its behaving itself whilst preventing damage to the TCS warning light. I'm now looking for the wiring diagrams so I can work out where to splice in to the loom - I'm going to modify the car rather than the dash cluster in case I need to replace the dash in future so I don't have to go through this again

JohnnyB · Post by **JohnnyB** » Thu Jun 09, 2016 1:19 am

Change of plans again

I ended up changing the loom and the cluster but still used the TCS Off light, all working nicely now

I've bought a "universal" battery clamp kit from *shudder* Halfords which, of course, doesn't fit

So I've marked it up and will make the necessary changes tomorrow lunchtime in the workshop. I'll book the MOT retest for Friday afternoon

Whilst I had the dash out I've taken the opportunity to fit a 'VTEC' light to one of the 3 spare windows. I've not wired it up yet as I want to make sure the new ECU works properly before splicing into the loom, that way I'll know if something stops working it's my fault

Once the MOT is done and dusted and I know the ECU works fine I'll wire the VTEC dash light in and try and find the high level 'prelude' light I started modifying about 6 years ago... I bought it and fitted it before deciding a few months later to try and modify it to have 'prelude' light up with the sidelights and 'VTEC' light up when VTEC kicks in but never finished it - now I've got the dash light I may as well finish the job and finally get the rear headlining back in

So much to do, so little time

JohnnyB · Post by **JohnnyB** » Wed Jun 15, 2016 12:53 am

MOT passed last Thursday (yay!) and the car is now in getting the offside rear arch rust sorted. I popped in at lunchtime today to check progress and she was up in the air with all the nasty rust removed, I'll pop back in tomorrow lunchtime and hopefully they'll have the welding done

They had to remove more of the outer sill than I'd originally thought but they're pretty confident they've got all the nasty rot out now, just a bit of surface rust to sort and plenty of sealant once the new metal is welded in

A nasty surprise lurking behind the bumper was a fairly large rust hole so they're having to patch the inner wing where it meets the bumper but apparently not a big deal... There's some pitting left on the metal where they've removed some surface rust on the adjoining panel but there's still plenty of good metal left to weld to...

To be honest I was expecting them to use a lot more of the repair panel but apparently it's not needed and I'm better off keeping as much of the original panel as possible. I'm gonna go with their knowledge, they've done a lot of these and apparently mine was by no means the worst they've seen which is nice to hear

I'll try and get a few more photos tomorrow

It's a shame the other side will remain rusty for the next few months while I save up to get it sorted

Lude Generation

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