110: Sunday 31st January 2010

I took the power steering pump off again. The plan is to modify the pipework and use the Citroen pump and reservoir as this is the correct pump for the motor. This might not be as powerful as the Probe pump, but it should not overload the motor. I am not fussy about the steering so long as it is comfortable to drive. My old Fiesta has no power steering and I am sure this will be better even with a smaller pump. The main difference is that the Citroen pump is designed to work from a 12v motor compared to the Probe pump that is designed to be belt driven by an engine. I took the banjo connection of the pump and removed the connector that the banjo fixed to on the pump. The Citroen pump has a threaded connection directly to the pump. I was hoping the connector from the Probe pump would go straight into the thread on the Citroen pump, but it was not to be. I now need to get an adapter or have a short pipe made. I then set about changing the heater. I decided there were a couple of niggly jobs I wanted to do with the heater controls before I stripped the interior out of the car. First was to make the heater relay so that it would only work when the blower was on. I decided to try to figure out why the engine module connection that works from fan positions 3 & 4 was not working before. I stripped the blower control switch right down to the contacts. I realised that the connection was direct to ground from positions 3 & 4. I can only assume that where I was picking up the connection at the other end of a loom something was not right there. I know that this special engine connection only went to the engine controller and since this has been removed I just cut the wire and gave myself enough to connect just behind the heater control panel. I put the switch back together and connected the blower connection to the heater relay and it now works o.k. I also wired this in series with the spare button on the panel, so both connections have to be made in order for the heater to work. The button had an LED indicator on it and that was not working either. I checked through the circuit and found that my original assumption about the connections were wrong and I picked up a supply and tried running through some resistors to make the indicator work. It did and I tried some different resistors to get the brightness about the same as the others on the panel. I then disconnected everything and took the panel into the garage to solder it all in place properly. I then rewired it all back in the car. Now the indicator comes on when the both switches are closed i.e. the fan is on position 3 or 4 and the button is latched in, with the ignition key in position 2. At last some progress. I intend to now take the interior out to get the heater core out of the heater box and replace it with the new 120v core. Hopefully I will get my brake calipers back this week, so I can fit these on, bleed it all, and get it back on its wheels. Just the power steering problem to solve then and it will be ready to put in for and Engineers report and MOT test.