300: Friday 28th December 2018

The weather and just being really busy with trying to move house has been taking up my time lately. I ordered a GSM switch some time ago. Today I replaced the single switch GSM switch I had already fitted with the new 4 relay one.

A GSM switch uses mobile phone technology. With a GSM switch and a SIM card, I can control 4 relays from encoded text messages. I have an app that uses simple buttons to generate the messages. The first one I fitted only had 1 relay output. I used this to switch on my ignition for the cooling / heating systems only. I had to remember to press the 'heat' button to bring on the electric heater. The plan was to have another relay to bypass the button, but this also requires that the fan is on or the heater relay won't work. It is do-able with one relay, but since I was doing this I wanted to be able to control more, so I bought another GSM switch that can control 4 relays. I made a small bracket from some L section aluminium and mounted it on the old cruise control module bracket. It was really cold today, so I just wired it the same as before, so I still have to remember to press the 'heat' button when I park so it is ready when I want to come out to a nice warm defrosted car.

I need to run wires to use another relay to bypass the heat button. I also want to bring on the heated rear screen at the same time, but this uses an electronic button so one push sets a timer, second push turns it off again. The relay outputs can be pulsed, so this will be another function. In order to do this I need to get inside the heated rear screen button as the terminal to switch states is not accessible externally, so I need to get in the switch and run a separate wire so I can mimic the button push with a pulse from the relay on the GSM switch. Then I need to run the wires from the heat button and rear screen heater to the GSM switch. Fortunately most of this can be done inside the car, so a bit warmer while I'm working I'm hoping to do this tomorrow.

299: Thursday 23rd August 2018

Today I wanted to solve a problem I had been experience for some months now. Whenever it rains the ignition stays on (position 2 only) after I have removed the keys. After a few days without rain this would stop and everything would work normally. This morning it was raining and after lunch it had stopped, so the conditions were perfect to find the fault. I removed the ignition relay (that was warm as it had been on for a long time), and as I disconnected it I felt it click. I gently pushed it in an out a few times and it was clicking each time. So with the ignition relay removed I put my tester into the connector in the fuse box and saw 10 volts. Clearly there was some voltage leakage. When I keyed on again I could see 14v and this is the normal 12v system voltage from the DC-DC converter. Keyed off again and the voltage went back to 10v. I recently bought a complete set of Ford Technical service wiring diagrams (originals), so I checked the circuits and the removed the fuse supplying the key switch. I keyed on to position 2 and the radio came on and the aerial went up. When I put the key in position 1 the radio turned off and the aerial went down. This indicated that the fault was in a circuit that uses both of the first 2 key positions. Back to the wiring diagrams and I found the engine cooling fans' circuit was one of them and I pulled the fuse. Another indicator was that the cabin blower was also working before. When I pulled the fuse for the engine fans the cabin fan stopped and the voltage at the ignition relay coil connection went to zero volts. I put back the key switch fuse and everything was working properly. I have left the engine cooling fans' fuse out. This makes sense as this is at the front of the car and with no radiator is exposed to rain water. I was struggling to find anywhere water was collecting, so it was somewhere in the engine cooling fan loom. As I don't have any engine cooling fans anymore then I can just leave the fuse out so the circuit is now dead. Problem solved (finally). The reason I wanted to solve this so badly was because I have bought a 12v GSM gate opener switch so I can defrost my car remotely in winter. In winter I can turn the car off with the key then press the heater button to on and then switch the ignition on remotely from a text message to the new module. I can set it to stay on for a time of say 15 minutes (max 16.65 minutes or 999 seconds). So the scenario is; In winter I get up in the morning and look out of the window and see frost or the screen misted up, I get my phone and send a text message to the car that switches the ignition on for 15 minutes. Then brush my teeth etc., get dressed and when I go to my car it is defrosted / demisted and I can just drive off nice and cosy. I can send different text messages to change the control so I can switch on (permanently), switch it off, switch on for a time and also control which phone numbers that can activate the switch. So now I have the problem of the ignition staying on solved I can go ahead and add this new circuit.

----

Some time ago I said that I had added the front parking sensors and these have been working fine for some time now. The picture below shows the 2 sensors on the front right side. There was 4 in total on the front.

----

On Sunday I fitted the rear parking sensors. It was some time before I got round to these because I had ordered some 2 pin auto connectors from eBay and once they came I cut the cable and fitted the connectors. The module for the parking sensors was mounted under the hood, so I had to run the wires under the rear seat and under the right side trim. The cables had to pass through the rear bumpers, so it would not be possible to remove the bumper without having to feed the cables back through the car, so this this is why I added connectors so I can just disconnect them near to the bumper and leave the sensors in place. I checked the sensors all worked with the connectors before feeding the wires. Once fitted, everything works fine. The rear sensors work all the time when the car is in reverse, but the front sensors only work when I operate a switch near the handbrake and when the brake pedal is pressed then they stop after the brake has been released for some time. The good thing is that I can switch the front sensors off so they don't keep beeping when I am driving.

298: Sunday 10th June 2018

Last weekend I added a parking sensor kit in order to help with not crashing into things. I have only done the front sensors so far, but this really helps. I have also added a front camera, this is using the same monitor display in my rear view mirror. Now I can see if I am going to hit a kerb. I believe I'm ready to repair the cracks and damage on my front bumper. Yesterday I made an edge for my 2DIN Android Head unit (stereo). It has been bugging me for a long time that after I had put black felt around the radio edge before using double sided tape onto the trim, I could still see little bits of trim inside and some of the edges weren't great. I just used hardboard covered with black felt. I made a simple rectangle and fitted it in the space, then marked where it need to be bigger to meet the edges of the dash trim. I then made another using the new measurements. I cut the board with a Stanley knife (box cutter). As the edges were quite small, I needed to be careful when tweaking the cuts, so I clamped it in the vice and filed the odd millimetre up to the vice jaws. This stopped any risk of breaking it, especially at the corners. The edges were blacked using a sharpie.

----

I then put some paper on the bench, put the edge on top then sprayed with carpet glue. I took it off the paper straight away then applied the black felt. Gave the bench a wipe then placed the edge face down and carefully cut off the excess felt. I went back round the edges touching up the black where there was glue marks.

----

Fitted it all back in the dash and now I have a perfect fitting edge to my stereo and nothing showing. Really pleased with the finished product...

297:Saturday 7th April 2018

After several weekends of getting rained off, I bit the bullet and bought a pop-up car tent. Mary and I did a trial run yesterday and found that the side panels were like a big sail or kite and real difficult to put up. I chose not to use the side panels this time, but if I had all the tie-downs stretched out, it may be possible. Anyway guess what... It didn't rain, not a spot until after I had finished and had dinner. It did keep the sun off though.

----

Today's job was to finish fitting the air ride front height sensors. I did the rears at my friend and neighbour Luke's workshop on a 2 post lift and as I needed to run cables under the length of the car. Today's wiring was much simpler and all the work was under the wheel arches, so I could do this with a jack and some axle stands.

----

I drilled 2 holes and mounted an L bracket to the lower wishbone. I fixed the height sensor link rod to the L bracket and with the strut at full extension I marked the position of the other end of the link rod. I then evacuated the air from the strut and jacked it up until the car started lifting and marked the other end of the link rod again on the wheel arch. I measured between the marks and the difference was 50mm (this is not the full height as the bracket was mounted about half way between the wishbone hinge point and the end where the strut connects). I then marked half way between them as this is where the link rod needs to be so I could mount the sensor in the midway position with the arm half way. I connected the sensor to the link rod and set it with the arm half way and set the jack so the link rod end was also at the halfway point. I marked the top and bottom of the sensor and where the holes were, then took sensor spacer mounting plate and used this to mark the holes. I drilled the holes with a small drill as a pilot for the self tapping screws that are used to mount the sensor. I ran the screws in on their own first to cut a thread, then mounted the sensor on the mounting plate to the wheel arch. Did the same on the other side, connected the wires, then set about calibrating everything. The valve block processor has a built in calibration routine that you can set automatically or manually. I tried the auto calibrate first and it took ages pumping the suspension up and down and waiting for the compressor to refill the tank etc. At the end of the calibration I got min height errors on the rear sensors. Next I tried automatic pressure calibration and manual height calibration. After another round of ups and downs, I got to set the min and max heights and then some more up and down to finish the calibration. It's quite fiddly trying to set the limits to a particular pressure as each push of the buttons makes the strut you are adjust jump 2 or 3 PSI each time. This also resulted in minimum height errors on the rear again. So for the last attempt, I did manual pressure calibration and height calibration. It took me about 20 minutes to complete, but it is tip top now. First trip was to the end of my road and back. I used the mid point setting and ran over some bumps and small kerbs, and superb, no donking. I am a happy bunny today. I had a fiddle with some of the presets to put them at the percentage heights I chose instead of the calibrated 25, 50, 75% settings. Now I have what I expected from the air ride and now I can start tidying everything else up so I can start showing it with pride. Zoom in on the photo below to see the detail of the sensor, link rod and bracket etc.





296: Monday 2nd April 2018

I have been delinquent with my posts recently. I notice the last post was October and have made a few change since then. After destroying the DC-DC converter, I bought a new and improved one. This has a 1kW output at 14.0v, so just like a car alternator. Now when I power on, I get my battery gauge reading half way and it just stays there. I ran power steering, fan, lights and the air ride compressor all at the same time and it didn't vary. Cost was about £230 by the time I had it shipped from Hong Kong. I am really pleased with the way it performs. I had many Iota DLS55s and they all broke eventually.

----

I mounted the remote for the air ride system onto the left side of the dash. It is well illuminated and along with the 2DIN Android head unit, JLD404 Intelligent Ah meter and the bespoke Probatron battery monitoring touchscreen display it is starting to look like KITT. 

----

I have been trying to get the air ride system to work better as I get a horrible loud donk noise like someone hitting an anvil with a hammer from the rear when the ride is set high or low as the struts reach their end of travel. With a 300kg  battery in the trunk it does this quite easily. Getting the car to ride half way for normal driving depends of a lot of factors like how stiff the struts are, ambient temperature, how many people in the car etc. When it was set half way, no donk noise (except for huge bumps). I took the plunge and bought the height sensor kit for the system. This will get past all the factors and will sit the car half way and keep it there when I set it up. The air suspension has 5 preset buttons on the remote. The top and bottom are fully up and down respectively, The three in between are so the user can program 3 different ride heights for different driving situations. I have set these for cruising (low), normal driving (medium) and speed bumps (high). The picture below shows the left rear height sensor fitted and connected. I have run the cables and tied them up so they are in the front with the air ride controller. I borrowed my friend Luke's workshop with 2 post lift so I could get right under the car. I started to get too many back, and shoulder pains. So I didn't get to fit the front ones. I have ordered a pop up tent to put on my driveway so I can work on my car without having to wait for good weather. That should come by the weekend so I can make some brackets and mount the front height sensors. The tent I have ordered is 4.5 x 3m (15 x 10 feet), so it will completely cover my car, and has 4 sides so I can easily get it in and out and make space all around. I am looking forward to this now. I have also fixed the rear bumper structure to the skins by drilling and screwing through. I covered the screw heads with filler, sanded them smooth and sprayed some primer. I was getting some rust bubbles appearing on both rea wheel arches, so I ground it back, ran a wire brush tool through it, treated with Jenolite, filled, sanded and sprayed this with some primer. I have ordered some red paint in a rattle can so I can go over these repairs. I shall get a proper painter to tidy up my work. Bodywork is my least favourite part of working on cars. I can never get it right...