> Both the red book and
> the haynes manuals have wiring diagrams that predate the addition of the
> orange indicator lights at the back, nor do they show the 4 wires
> going to the
> steering column. so no luck with the wiring diagrams. any ideas guys?
Frank, I just sent you two different versions of the wiring diagram. One
should be very close for your car, but is the RHD version (from the owner's
manual), the other has some minor differences but is drawn for a LHD car
(from Dan Masters).
> problem #2) drivers side headlight works fine and is about as
> bright as one
> could hope for. 3 wires go to the light. one is black (usually suggesting
> ground) and is indeed grounded with a little fitting right on to the horn.
> on the passenger side the light is very dim on dipped beam and
> non existent
> on main beam.
That's very suggestive of a bad ground ... the black wire is the only ground
for the headlamp, it's not connected through the lamp at all.
> the black wire is just frayed and sticking out
> there with no
> connection to anything. There is no little fitting on the horn on
> this side either.
Not sure what fitting on the horn you are talking about ... there should be
a clip held to the body with a sheet metal screw that takes the ground wire
from the headlamp and from the turn/park lamp.
> clamping it to ground does not appear to make any
> difference to the dipped
> beam. Still as dim as ever. any ideas?
Bad connection somewhere, broken wire (sometimes they break inside the
insulation) or possibly a genuinely bad bulb. (Extremely rare, but I have
seen it happen once where the ground lead was broken inside the bulb.) But
I think most likely you just weren't getting a good connection between the
black wire and ground.
> also how do the chrome headlight
> surrounds come off?
They just snap off, but you need a special tool that will reach underneath,
between the surround and the front apron, and engage behind the surround so
you can pull directly forward on the bottom. I made mine by heating and
bending an old hacksaw blade (then grinding the teeth off). However it's
been suggested that on some older PCs, the metal tabs used to cover the
board slots in the back are strong enough to form one of these tools. Mine
weren't.
> finally how do i get the control head off?
There are 3 'grub' screws on the back of the steering wheel hub, spaced
evenly around the hub. If you back those off, you should be able to pull up
on the control head. You'll have to take the wiring harness loose though,
and feed it up through the stator tube as you remove the head.
Important point when working with old wire ... copper metal is bright and
shiny, like a new penny (no, new pennies aren't copper, but they look like
it). That brown color you see on old wires is copper oxide, which doesn't
conduct worth a darn. To get a good connection, it's essential to remove
the copper oxide.
Randall
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