LED Headlamps

Finished the wiring for the headlights, whether they are MOT legal or not is yet to be tested.

The LED headlight lamps I chose had a built in quirk that they would not light full beam and dip beam at the same time. My loom tried to illuminate both when on full beam - and for a long while I've just planned the fix.

The LED bulbs have deflectors for dip/main to move the light generation point appropriately for my lenses. LED pictured top using the same connector and a built in fan, high intensity halogen H4 bottom.

Two choices - dive into the fusebox again and adjust the headlight circuit or, what I decided on, a flying loom in the front of the car to cut the dip beam when full beam is on. The circuit is designed to be non-destructive by plugging into the existing loom and will still work with normal H4 bulbs:

Picked up on the same colour scheme as the existing loom with high enough gauge to also support normal bulbs, if the LEDS don't make it through MOT then I can simply revert the bulbs and leave this circuit in place.

My least favourite part of the car, I just can't seem to make it look tidy - the new flying loom plugs into one side of the headlight feed then connects to the headlight leads. The relay mounted to the existing horn attachment point.

Works well enough - the relay on the flying loom simply cuts power to dip when it sees main, no changes required to existing switches or fusebox, the dip pattern seems to work - although not completely visible on these pictures - horizontal top with a kick up to the near side.

Dip, Full beams, lenses themselves look like they need rotating to get a level output.

Next step is run the lights through an alignment test and confirm if I'm legal.
To be continued...

Update - Bigclive.com Youtube channel just did a teardown and explanation of these bulbs, bears our my experience with them not supporting main and dip on at the same time. Very interesting.

2017 - Unfinished jobs - LED headlights

The plan was to try upgrading the headlights to LED too, check the resulting pattern with a local garage and hopefully drop the headlights power requirements into the bargain.

Picked up some reasonable lamps from ebay which appear to have the right sort of light guide/baffles in place. However...

These particular LEDs only permit high OR low beam on at any one time, turns out the Zero loom leaves both high and low beams on when on high beam mode and when flashing high beams.

It should be a relatively simple mod to the loom to have only high or low beam in all scenarios - but the weather is just not conducive to messing around in the fusebox / lighting loom in an unheated garage. So the car currently sits - headlights removed thus:

A little warmer weather closer to 10ºC and I'll get back on it.

Update - loom adjustment made and installed here.

LED Tail lights

A little for the sake of it - but also a general effort to reduce power consumption at low revs. I especially get short on juice with all lights on and engine on tick-over - eventually I'll start to lose stable idle as the voltage drops and typically it happens at the end of a long drive in city stop/start situations.

First step - easiest step is some replacement LED tail lights. Offically marked for off road only - so I'll run a few tests until I'm comfortable running them permanently.

The P21/5W compatible bulb has no trouble with the exact same location - all round illumination and in line with the normal reflector. I purchased a red led one so shouldn't have any issues of white light bleed through.

The central ring of LEDs lights for when the main headlamps are on, all 3 rings light with the brakes.

Not scientific - but comparing LEDs on the right, and normal filaments on the left there doesn't seem to be much in it so installed on both sides. Hopefully helps my voltage/current budget into the bargain.

Headlamps are next - but thats a slightly more complex mod.

Replace number plate lights

My original 5 LED unit only had one left working, so replacing it.

Bolt LEDs units for under £5 from China, I made some simple brackets from PETG offcuts left over from the Wind Deflectors, these will stick behind the plate rather than bolt through it to avoid any issues of making the plate less readable.

They wire into the original number plate lamp on the rear panel, which is still in place.

I still may re-visit the wiring route...

I should be all set for MOT now, perhaps after Stoneleigh.

Update - both of these failed by April 2019 - 2 years life, possibly because they were mounted facing up any water sitting in the LED.

Replace front indicators

This one was on the cards for a while, a breakage on the Ireland trip just forced the issue. No idea where the lens went, didn't even notice it was gone until one of the campsite owners told me.

So looked for some options, this one only £3 from china - nice shape - but a little too extreme on size - perhaps more suited to being a repeater.

After browsing Ebay for 'motorcycle fairing indicator' settled on this. It would be no good for IVA - no 45º visibility from the front let alone minimum distance to the side, but MOT just checks number and functionality on indicator lights so I should be fine.

The car is on stands so no way to stand back and double check I got them exactly level - all functional though, nice new clean look.

Couple of longer shots in the drive - looks fine to me, they are even reasonably level!

Good news and bad news - lights and leaks

New Headlamps

I fitted small 4" dominator headlamps which looked great - but 2 years down the line they have to go, just not large enough reflectors to generate good lighting even with higher power bulbs.

I didn't go back to full 7" lamps - but instead 5 3/4" with a full UK pattern lens. Picked them up  from CBS who are just down the road. Hopefully a good compromise between looks and function; certainly massively brighter even in daylight than the dominators.

Modified them to use the drilled mounting bolts from the old 7" lights means I can hide the wiring inside the mounting bracket. 

(Picture angle is deceptive - they are pointing straight ahead)

Leaks

Call it good luck that I decided to replace the lights and found the problem, or bad luck that I now have something else to fix :). The radiator looked a little beaten up, full of bugs, a few dints in the cooling fins etc.

The nose cone gave it away - why was it damp inside? and the gutter/bottom area of the rad fins full of coolant..

Started the engine up and when warm a little puff of steam from a hole... Its not a huge leak - the coolant height hasn't noticeably dropped since I was out a 2-3 weeks back.

Somehow a stone has gone in the back, unless this is the exit wound?

Looking more closely at the pic, very possibly damage from when the fan was originally mounted through the matrix. The picture shows bent fins, which are no problem but it appears the area they tore away from on the vertical matrix pipe has the pinhole leak. So that will be learning the hard way again.

It leaks hardly at all when cold, needs some investigation - repair or replace?  

Certainly needs fixing before Austria and I don't fancy bodging it this end of the season with radweld.

Brands Hatch - report

Just back from a long day at Brands Hatch...

Garage 18

Total Kitcar live was a one day track focused show, allowing anyone to signup and ride with the various marques present as a passenger.

I originally was attending as a static display example at the invitation of GBS, but the opportunity arose to also take the car around the track too; baptism of fire - wet track with no experience.

Garage 18 - The GBS racer was present, but on slicks and not going out; my motor an example of a road targeted customer build:

Some really nice Ford escorts adapted for racing next door, No idea what all the cars were, a good mixture, bike engined, replica, 3 wheeler, single seater, even an electric trike, but I don't think the wet conditions suited his vehicle.

Spent the morning chatting to KentZero from GBSOwnersclub and potential customers/interested parties including 2-3 people who had seen the blog and/or were in the process of looking at options or building their own cars.

On-Track

Fantastic to get on Brands Hatch as a driver

The track session; starting with sign in, the nominal drivers instruction then 2-3 sighting laps following the safety car; all very well organised. Relaxed atmosphere since the focus was on showing off the various marques in action. Special note made during the briefing informing all drivers the most usual place  to spin is after Druids - which of course was phropetic!

My first outing at my own pace with my wife in in the passenger seat: was fine for the first corner; - Paddock hill bend looks steep as a spectator - but even steeper from inside the car with adverse camber, then straight line with a right kink up to Druids, and I think I was the first spinner! - a little too much right foot coming out of the corner, back end came around and a short detour sideways onto the grass!

Attempt to save it, steer into the corner - no luck - grass is more slippery than the damp track...

No Damage though - so a quick check, clean up and back out half a dozen times over the day with my wife and a some prospective/interested GBS customers. Cannot say I was quick around Druids, but could give it some speed around 70mph down the straights and sort-of getting the hang of Surtees and McLaren..

Paddock is cool in a fatalistic sort of way, needs setting up on the straight, and then trying to smoothly drive through it and get onto the uphill straight before running out of road width.

Lots of practice on the blue flags and letting faster cars past; hopefully I didn't get in the way too much.

 

In the background on this picture from TKC Magazine's Facebook page, DRLs nicely bright!

My dash camera has a built in GPS which can extract basic speed telemetary. The graph is speed vertical with time left to right. It shows each outing onto the track as a cluster of verticals, laps marked by the significant low points which is me taking it very easy through the Druid's hairpin.

The horizontal axis is not continuous between outings; i.e. we had significant breaks between the 5 drives around - avoiding the worst of the weather if nothing else.

Still in one piece and luckier than some - I was not the only spinner, and one unlucky Cobra replica ended up losing a headlight and re-modelling a wing as it spun on the start finish straight hitting the pit-wall resulting in a red flag for a while.

All in all a good day - 7.30 am start at the track, and good time to drive, wander and look at other cars and watch the general goings on. Mostly dry/damp but no real clear sky to let the track dry off and one total downpour for good measure.

The drive home felt so much more stable than the track; I think a mixture of dry conditions, instruction and setup check will help before venturing off the road again.

You've got to have a go though!

A few videos with more in-car shots to follow in due course.

Aux Panel re-install with radio & DRL

Wiring: Fusebox

New key for the fuse box, in the process of adding the new circuits I documented all the fuses. Colour coding matches fuses to those which have relays switching them: (My fusebox is upside down vs. standard Zero build, fuses above relays)

Wiring: Savage dimmer

My new preferred Savage switch dimming circuit vs the old one.
The same approach is used on all three switches with the output +ve load looped over to the LED side of the switch. Thus on the fog switch, which takes +ve from dip beam it is a true tel-tale, the switch only lighting when the fog lamp itself is lit.

No extra diodes necessary, the LED itself is a diode so won't let current back through to the side lights circuit when the switch is off and in any event its grounded both sides in this scenario.

Update - this could do with a fuse on the LED ground line, shared between the three switches.
If (when?) the LED/bulb shorts it will blow the fuse on the +ve feed - taking out headlights or sidelights fuse. With a separate very low current fuse on GND any problem with the LED/bulb will leave the primary load circuit working.

When off: 

• +Ve feed connects to nothing
• If side lights are on they illuminate the switch dimmed by the resistor

When on:

•  +Ve feed connects to the load and in parallel through the LED, thus when the load gets power, the LED gets power.
• For the fog lamp the +Ve feed is the dip beam line, so when on  with dips off then the switch LED does not light and neither do the fogs.

The savage LEDs are rated 12v so the resistor is only to dim them slightly, I used 0.6W 5k6 Ohm resistors. The resistor should dissipate approx 0.02W when side lights are on.

Aux Panel MkIII

Final steps on the new version of the aux panel, vinyl covered and an override switch top right so the electric aerial can be indepdendently turned off. My thinking is this will be useful either if it gets stuck, or more likely to ensure I don't raise it in the garage while testing the radio. 

I'm using the original sides of the old panel, the second picture showing how the front face is now a little more vertical:

I still don't have a new push-pull for the heater control in the left most position, so just a placeholder blank plate for now:

 Trying to keep the wiring as consistent and neat as possible & went back to the standard 11 way connector for the panel. Re-used the old earth rivnut for a stand-off to support the back of the radio:

With the heater matrix on the other side of the firewall bulkhead & the aux panel itself sitting slightly more vertical there is a good inch of space between the radio back and heater box:

Testing: Side lights off, then side lights on which illuminates the switches, radio volume button(when its off) or dims the radio display when its on:

The Radio did give me one gotcha - it takes two live feeds, one permanent to maintain its memory/time etc, and one via the ignition to allow it to turn on - I wired up exactly as per the manual using the standard ISO connectors - but it turns out this particular radio needs these two feeds reversed to work properly - go figure :)

Update - after talking to Blaupunkt, turns out the radio when wired as standard will turn on when ignition is off but only for 1 hour. So currently wired to not come on at all - may change it back in the future.

And my nifty (although already temperamental) electric aerial. It works well as an aerial, and I like the way its hidden when not in use, however it also has a habit of not quite winding all the way down - I'll pull it apart and re-grease/clean etc at some point:

Daytime Running Lights

The DRLs wiring installed now, switchable via the aux panel. I bought a switching box which takes +Ve, Ground and a feed from the side lights to automatically turn the DRLs off, overriding the panel switch, at night time when the side or headlights are turned on. The 6 lights just below the headlights actually look brighter than this in bright daylight - very pleased with the effect.

More noticeable in these later examples; my Zero is in the far distance on the first with only DRLs on:

Took her out for a test drive to Ashford on the M20 and back on the A20 ... :)

Passed a couple of huge articulated lorries near Maidstone, a matt black Pirelli & a Grey/Silver one possibly Mercedes, presumably on their way from the Silverstone F1 Grand Prix today heading to mainland Europe.

The radio is much clearer, no distortion now at high volume - but still really only useful when waiting in traffic or moving under 50mph, after that buffeting takes over and all you can hear is wind - I'll add in a headphone circuit later.

Over 50mph there is more to concentrate on anyway!

Final part of the upgrades is the holes in the bonnet to let air into the heater matrix. I need to be in a calm mood for that one - no second chances.