Sadlonelygit wrote: ↑Thu Aug 01, 2024 9:50 pm
It's been hitting 100 here (in the shade) by 2pm all week!
Pah - that's a mere 37.7778 degrees C
I've just been going on the BBC's weather service and from what I can see, they regularly under-state the true temps. But I think all of the southern half of France has been under the cosh heat-wise this week. Except Paris - they've had floods, apparently.
I've had the (French) locals complaining to me about the heat this week, which is a novelty.
It's been best part of a year since I made any real updates to this thread, mainly because not very much has been happening with the Spider. When I arrived in April of this year I was intending to make progress, but as usual the need to make progress with the house took precedence and I left in May without having done anything of consequence to the car. And when I was here in July/August it was just too dam' hot to even open the garage doors. There was also a certain amount of anxiety as to whether the car's repaired engine would actually start and work correctly, which translated into me not attempting to get it going...
Anyway, I've been back in France for a couple of weeks and today I decided that I would man up and attempt to start the car. Before that I had to clear away all the detritus that had accumulated around the car, wash all the windows so I could see out, and pump up the tyres (they were all between 15 and 20 psi). So the battery (on charge for the last couple of days) was bolted back into its tray, the live clamp attached to the battery terminal and then the earth clamp connected to its terminal.
Except it never got that far...
As soon as the earth clamp touched the battery earth terminal there were big sparks, pops and bangs and smoke. And the earth lead flew out of the clamp like it had been fired from a pistol. This un-nerved me quite a lot... The earth lead is the OE item and is soldered into the clamp (or rather it was). Can anybody explain this? I know there is normally a spark as the second of the two clamps contacts the battery terminal, but I've known anything as violent as this.
Anyway after thinking about this a bit (and retiring for a cup of tea) I decided to ring Vehicle Wiring Products in the UK and see if they ship to France. Thankfully they do and the extremely helpful chap there sorted me out with the right size earth lead with the correct terminations (I already have a spare earth clamp) and a pack of 10 ring crimp terminals. The whole lot (including pricey postage to France) came out at a measly £18. Bargain. Thank heavens for people like VWP.
So once my VWP parcel arrives, I'll gird my loins to do battle again. This is turning into a real saga...
Rockburner wrote: ↑Fri Oct 04, 2024 7:23 pm
Did you leave the ignition turned on?
No. Ignition keys were in my pocket. When I inspected the cable that had been ejected from the clamp it was clear that the solder hadn't had much of a hold (if any) on the cable strands as only a few showed partial evidence of tinning. There were 19 x 1mm strands in the cable and very few had any solder marks.
I did have cause to remove the fuse box from the bulkhead as I needed the wriggle room to get at the exhaust. I'm wondering if something was mis-connected on reassembly.
Sparks mean a big short circuit so don't attempt to connect the battery again until you have found the cause. This is assuming you haven't done something daft such as connecting the battery the wrong way round! Big current drains would only be possible with items such as starter motor and starter relay wiring so those are the connections to check first. The next would be the alternator and regulator connections to the battery which may not be fused.
If you measure the resistance across the battery leads ( without the battery of course ) you will probably find it is very low instead of the 50+ ohms that would be expected but bear in mind that this might be directional so switch the meter leads around to measure both ways. If you can get a meaningful near zero reading it will make tracing the short easier.
Final suggestion is that when vehicles are stored for long periods they can get insulation damage from vermin that like to chew it up! In the UK its usually rats or squirrels but overseas there are far more interesting range of creatures!
roadster wrote: ↑Sat Oct 05, 2024 9:36 amSparks mean a big short circuit so don't attempt to connect the battery again until you have found the cause. This is assuming you haven't done something daft such as connecting the battery the wrong way round! Big current drains would only be possible with items such as starter motor and starter relay wiring so those are the connections to check first. The next would be the alternator and regulator connections to the battery which may not be fused.
I'm pretty certain that I'm guilty of a self-inflicted problem here. Following your advice given above I first checked the positive battery leads and found that the main supply to the starter solenoid was solid and not in contact with any metallic elements other than the solenoid terminal. Next I checked the black/white lead to the aternator and I think that is where I made my big mistake when bolting everything back together following the last round of works. In the picture below there are three chunky black/white cables all bolted to the same (upper) terminal post on the alternator. I believe that the heavier of the three (on the left of the picture) is in fact an earth strap and should be connected to a lower binding post which has a nut fitted to it, but has no cables attached.
Certainly it appears that I've created a major short by bolting an earth and live cable to the same terminal post. See what you think, but that's what it looks like to me. I really don't know what I was thinking when I did this - my only excuse is that a) all the cables are the same colour and b) I was left completely unsupervised...
Yes I think you've got it and tracing the cables will tell you for sure. Only the Italians would use the same colours for live and earth wires but are you sure that the lower of the black and white cables isn't too close to that stud too?
roadster wrote: ↑Sat Oct 05, 2024 12:04 pm
Yes I think you've got it and tracing the cables will tell you for sure. Only the Italians would use the same colours for live and earth wires but are you sure that the lower of the black and white cables isn't too close to that stud too?
The other end of the black with white trace cable to the left is bolted to the block just above the sump, so very obviously an earth lead. How I missed this when reassembling is beyond me - probably in a rush to get it all buttoned up.
The apparent proximity of live cables to an earth stud is a bit of an illusion due to me using a telephoto setting on the zoom lens. In reality there's at least 20mm between them, plus there's a rubber boot to be fitted to the live terminal post.
Agree about Italians and cable colours - both live and neutral battery cables are green, FFS.
Sadlonelygit wrote: ↑Sat Oct 05, 2024 8:20 pm
Undo and remove the monochrome wires,attach battery, then 1 by 1 touch the wires to the pole to see which one sparks, simples!
I'll try that, but the clincher was really that the other end of the big B/W wire is bolted firmly to the block just above the sump, so can only be an earth. By process of deduction the other two wires are live, seeing as one of them comes direct from the battery. I still don't understand why I didn't use that reasoning when fastening the various cables when reassembling.
mangocrazy wrote: ↑Sat Oct 05, 2024 11:03 am
I really don't know what I was thinking when I did this - my only excuse is that a) all the cables are the same colour and b) I was left completely unsupervised...
Sorry. But had to like the post for this!!!
(I need to remember this phrase! )
Good luck, hope it runs soon
Life is for living. Buy the shoes. Eat the cake. Ride the bikes. Just, ride the bikes!!
One of the things that I'd do in an ideal world would be to completely re-make the engine bay section of the wiring loom in modern thin wall cable using a gauge higher throughout. But that would need the car back in Sheffield in a well-equipped garage, so unlikely to happen any time soon (if ever). I really don't understand using the same colour cables for widely differing applications. I really should have spotted the difference between earth and live feeds, but that kind of shit really doesn't help.
cheb wrote: ↑Sun Oct 06, 2024 9:29 am
Possibly the all white wires have a numbered mylar tape under the insulation, Pirelli certainly supplied similar on the mid 1980s
I'm trying to understand the logic in that, but failing...
mangocrazy wrote: ↑Sun Oct 06, 2024 9:56 am
One of the things that I'd do in an ideal world would be to completely re-make the engine bay section of the wiring loom in modern thin wall cable using a gauge higher throughout. But that would need the car back in Sheffield in a well-equipped garage, so unlikely to happen any time soon (if ever). I really don't understand using the same colour cables for widely differing applications. I really should have spotted the difference between earth and live feeds, but that kind of shit really doesn't help.
cheb wrote: ↑Sun Oct 06, 2024 9:29 am
Possibly the all white wires have a numbered mylar tape under the insulation, Pirelli certainly supplied similar on the mid 1980s
I'm trying to understand the logic in that, but failing...
That's because I forgot to type that the number was printed on the outside of the insulation too.
mangocrazy wrote: ↑Fri Oct 04, 2024 6:32 pm
Anyway after thinking about this a bit (and retiring for a cup of tea) I decided to ring Vehicle Wiring Products in the UK and see if they ship to France. Thankfully they do and the extremely helpful chap there sorted me out with the right size earth lead with the correct terminations (I already have a spare earth clamp) and a pack of 10 ring crimp terminals. The whole lot (including pricey postage to France) came out at a measly £18. Bargain. Thank heavens for people like VWP.
So once my VWP parcel arrives, I'll gird my loins to do battle again. This is turning into a real saga...
The one thing I didn't check was what type of postage they were using. It turns out it was 'International Economy' which doesn't have tracking and can take up to 2 weeks to arrive!
Had I known I'd have requested 'International Tracked' (3-5 days delivery) and been happy to pay the difference. My package was posted a week ago, so I may have to wait another week for it to arrive. Grrrr...
You seem to be having quite the streak with high-maintenance cars - have you ever considered buying a P38 Range Rover or perhaps a Land Rover, maybe a Fiat Coupe or RX7?
