What have you done to your car today?

maccapacca said:
An engine? I always assumed your car had one of these http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_djYeu-MX1YM/R-2SWuVdpKI/AAAAAAAAEPU/HAG9rIjzZbk/s400/windupkey+cars.gif
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Haha not quite, but almost. You can see how tiny the block is in this old picture I found... It is about a foot wide. :p

XJ6d3zf.jpg

slick rick said:
Glad you came to a solution to the problem Acme, nice one. :)
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Thanks. :)
 
I can see the advisory on the MOT test sheet now... "Main beam headlights - They work, but WTF?" :p

But no it should be fine now... I expect I'll get advisories for a few things though:

- Rear bump stops perished/falling apart
- Springs corroded
- Nearside front arch liner damaged
- Offside front arch liner damaged
- Offside headlamp bracket snapped

Might get one for the badly dented sump, but I don't know if they would care.

And then the usual rubbish like:

- Engine bay partially obscured by covers
- Unable to fully see brakes

I'll get round to sorting that stuff...
 
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Acme said:
Right so I fixed the headlight by implementing subtle re-wiring. :p

Wire coming from the working headlight, piggybacked from the connector:

And going into the other one to give it the power that the gimped wiring can't -
also note the custom radiator fan bracket I made, because I have an incompatible fan and rad :p (bolt through type fan, non bolt-through type radiator):

And bought a pair of new Neolux bulbs, and a couple of spares...

Wish I'd used black wire but I couldn't find any... :rolleyes:

Now I just have to wait for my new Brembo disks and pads to arrive, and I'm MOT ready... :p
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Surely running a relay and a new 12V feed would have been the more suitable option, rather than running both bulbs over the same loom to one light?
 
ci_newman said:
Surely running a relay and a new 12V feed would have been the more suitable option, rather than running both bulbs over the same loom to one light?
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Probably but I could do this with stuff I had laying around, the wire, spade connectors, the fuse holder etc, and it was easy. :p

Rather than buying some more lengths of wire, the appropriate relay, finding out where behind the dash the relays are, ripping the dash out, wiring in the relay, running the new 12v feed and the wire from the relay through the firewall and around the engine bay, etc etc.

Maybe I'll do it properly somewhen, maybe I won't. Maybe I'll change the wire for a black one and hide it, so that prospective buyers in the future don't notice. :p

If my car weren't a 13 year old base model Polo worth sub £1000 I would have put more effort in. I just wanted to make it work. And if I had to buy the parts I used to fix this it would have cost £1.76. :rolleyes:
 
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I've been quite busy doing some wiring. The whole loom you see below used to run down inside the engine bay, and I have aftermarket headlights which have their own wiring loom with 3 feeds straight off the battery and 3 relays which was all just shoved in behind the headlight. So I've now taken the wiring loom out a hole to run it behind the wing, all hidden away. Which meant I could move a lot of wiring about, so the headlight wiring now goes up into the scuttle panel where the relays are now located, and extended that loom back to the headlights.

Also moved the rad fan relay up there too, as it used to be down by the rad, but I have the fan on a manual switch so pointless! Been doing all sorts just to hide as much wiring as I could as it was an utter mess. Also re-wired the Saxo EPAS pump and given it proper feeds, it's been a bit of a task.


Oh, and excuse the state of it, I have since jet washed all the arches, and I will be removing the suspension legs to paint them!

IMG_20150513_170026.jpg


Then wrapped it all up nicely.
IMG_20150513_171433.jpg


Also I have bought a power distribution block and ran some 0 gauge cable off the battery to it to hide all the feeds coming off it, as that's round the back of the battery when it's in the car.
IMG_20150501_190730.jpg


And finally today I got my new manifold under warranty, the old one cracked, so I can now get all the turbo back on soon :)
IMG-20150518-WA0016.jpg
 
Acme said:
Right so I fixed the headlight by implementing subtle re-wiring. :p

Wire coming from the working headlight, piggybacked from the connector:
[IG]http://i.imgur.com/aERUgHl.jpg?1[/IMG]

Running along the back of the slam:
[IG]http://i.imgur.com/XDfU5LO.jpg?1[/IMG]

Fused:
[IG]http://i.imgur.com/u6QTNf1.jpg?2[/IMG]

And going into the other one to give it the power that the gimped wiring can't -
also note the custom radiator fan bracket I made, because I have an incompatible fan and rad :p (bolt through type fan, non bolt-through type radiator):
[IG]http://i.imgur.com/5yTkY9R.jpg?1[/IMG]


And bought a pair of new Neolux bulbs, and a couple of spares...

Wish I'd used black wire but I couldn't find any... :rolleyes:

Now I just have to wait for my new Brembo disks and pads to arrive, and I'm MOT ready... :p
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I would recommend you buy a decent inline fuse holder and solder then wrap in heatshrink (or decent electrical tape) the wires together. The vibrations will soon have those crimp connectors coming loose.

Soldering > Crimp connections.
 
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I have decided that this is just to get it through its MOT anyway, I'll find the source of the issue (likely one of the control modules behind the fuse box) and sort it after the MOT is out of the way.

Surely it wouldnt really be safe as a permanent fix anyway, with one wire carrying the current for two bulbs when it was designed to carry the current for one?
 
Howard said:
I would recommend you buy a decent inline fuse holder and solder then wrap in heatshrink (or decent electrical tape) the wires together. The vibrations will soon have those crimp connectors coming loose.

Soldering > Crimp connections.
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I beg to differ. Not had any issues in my rattly old can with crimps, they aren't amazing but they are much better than using stuff like scotch blocks or chocolate blocks.

Acme, you don't need to rip apart anything to sort out your problem.

Where you have the wire going to the second bulb, run that into a relay (87/87a should be fine iirc) on the switching line, have an inline fuse between battery and the relay, then from the switched (on) pin, run that to the headlamp. - This is exactly what the loom I linked to for the mk2 Golf does and is all you need to do.

E:

Headlight-Wiring.jpg


http://www.staffs-vw.co.uk/golf-mki-mkvi/4267-headlight-upgrade.html
 
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