loose_electron
Donation Time
At some point you make a decision, is this a "resto mod" build, or is this an "as original as possible" build?
Considering when I got this car it already had the V6 modification, it was going to be modified. That said, the electrical system has now been gone through end to end and a lot of the older connections and sockets have been removed in favor of reliability over "era correctness" plus, there was no way I could leave cloth wiring installations in place and think that it would be safe or reliable.
I was surprised to run into cloth insulation on some wires, considering that the main wiring looms are early era plastic. My guess is that the design included some electrical sockets from 1950's era designs, that got re-used in the newer 60's era design.
Mind you, I have restored antique radios from the 1925 to 1940 era, so none of the (unsafe) stuff from early era electrical design surprises me.
My guideline for this build has been to make the car look correct to the era, but improvements are hidden. Some examples:
* all the lights are now LED but you can't tell just by looking.
* there is a hidden MP3 player that is invisible
* there will be a set of hidden USB ports to plug a cell phone into.
* Pete's wiring harness setup that he sells here is the guts of the electrical system
To a Sunbeam expert, things like the wiring harness are not era correct. The things I want to avoid are "visible modern gadgets" like the USB plugs and the MP3 player. Those are carefully hidden away.
Also, I have modified the power distribution a bit with a 350A fuse near the battery, and a 100A fuse on the power feed to the ignition switch, which makes the system pretty bulletproof to any wires shorting to the body of the car. I may adjust the values of those fuses down a bit, but 350A should be good for cold cranking and 100A should easily support the general fuse box distribution. Once the car is back and running I will do some measurements to determine appropriate values.
Right now I am rebuilding the dashboard, and am planning a few more indicator lights (closer to S5 type of setup) getting rid of the cigarette lighter, getting rid of the windshield squirter (they never worked well even back when they were new) and similar tweaks.
Right now I am debating the removal of the heater blower system controls on the dashboard. Here in Southern CA this is going to be a sunny day only car, and the heating system will never get used. In this car, the heat exchanger and blower are installed, but the cloth-wire duct pipes are gone and the functionality of the blower motor is in question. Not sure if getting all that working is worth the effort.
A word of caution to anyone doing auto electrical, learn how to crimp and test wire connections! I ended up properly redoing absolutely every wire in the car. The high amperage wires (battery, alternator, cranking) were all smash downs done with a set of vise-grips, which could be pulled apart by hand. Using a hydraulic crimper those all were re-done, and then all the little stuff (12 AWG and smaller) was done with a proper crimping tool, strain tested, and booted with heat shrink tubing.
Just my thoughts on this project, everything ahead of the windshield is done, and everything behind the driver is done. Now it all comes together in the re-wire of the dashboard and everything there.
Jerry
