Time for an update.
The 'reek has been a Rons place for about 3 months now. Not long after our meet in October last year, he suggested I bring it down to his place so we can replace the wiring on the head lights/tail lights. It was meant to be a two day job...
Part of the problem is that my 'reek is parked on his driveway, not under cover. So working on the car you're exposed to the elements. And lets say this has been the hottest summer we've had in quite some time. This week end they're predicting 40 degrees celsius for saturday, 45 for sunday. At one point, where Ron lives, it topped 45 three days running. Suffice to say, he doesn't work on it when it's too hot, let alone when it rains. Not to mention that Ron has to go to work, and do whatever Ron's do in their spare time (other then work on my car
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The other reason it's taking longer is that it turned from just the head lights & tail lights, to a complete rewiring of the car. Over the first two days, we rewired the lighting system, and we discovered that my car was fitted with the loom supplied by the Purvis Eureka Factory. This had, of course, been added and subtracted to over the years. So it was a mess. We kept finding things that had us saying "What the F..K?" all the time. Just one of these examples was the drivers side indicator Ron was rewiring at one point. As I was working on the tail lights, he brought down the light assembly and showed it to me. He clipped it at about 3 inches from the light itself. And in that short 3" section of wire, there was 3 wires made into the one length. It was blue/green from the light assembly, then an inch of green wire, then another inch of blue/green wire!!
Eventually we had to call it quits as we were running out of light on the second day. Ron said he'd keep it and work on it when he could. The crunch came when he had rewired the front end and worked back to the dash area. Under that dash was a complete mess. Worse than I had even realized. So he called and told me that it was now the time to totally rewire it. So, that's what Ron has been doing.
Here's a couple of kooky things about the wiring that was on the car. Battery up front, engine at the rear, but no battery cable running to the alternator...!?? It was being recharged through the loom at two points, the Alternator light on the dash, and I think he said the second point was off the stereo! This Ron has fixed with a length of cable that is used to earth Mainframes! That cable should be able to handle the Scooby alternator. lol
Another one was the 'quality' of the head lights, and I use both 'quality' and 'head lights' loosely. They were real dull and brown when on. Also, no high beam!! This was one of the reason behind the rewiring of the head lights. I often called the head lights courtesy lights for other road users. They were merely there so on coming traffic knew something was there!! Why no high beam? Incorrectly wired or burned out relay, can't remember which. And the real reason the head lights were so dim? They were wired straight to the battery, not the loom. So they weren't getting the power from the alternator!
Head lights were also upgraded. My car was still using sealed beams. We got a H4 conversion kit through a local parts store ($30 AU for the pair, and includes fittings for parkers as well!). Then on top of this, we got a HID conversion kit off eBay for about $160 AU. My beast will now have 6000w Diamond White head lights. 1,000,000% better then when I got the car. lol
Not sure what level of completion my roof is at the moment. And sometime this year (I'm hoping soonish), I'll get new Linak lifters.
I also want to say that Ron is one top bloke. It was his suggestion to do the wiring on my car, and I can't thank him enough.