Report on (slow) S2 Coupe rebuild progress

[nthomas1]

Andrea - good point on cleaning the fusebox.  The fuse rack that I pictured above has been very carefully cleaned with a brass wire brush and emery paper.  I'll clean up the wires and their connections as I transfer them from the old fuse rack to the new one.

Your sidelight solenoid wiring is different to my S2.  I have only 8 wires connecting to the 7 tabs.  That is consistent with the wiring diagram that is in my owner's manual.

Transposing those wires onto the equivalent terminals on the replacement CEAM solenoid gives the following, starting top left and working around anti-clockwise:

1 - Red wire, power in from fuse 8
2 - Brown wire from slider switch on lighting stalk
The above two wires make up the activating circuit for the internal solenoid

73 - Red 1.5 wire, power in from 7
49 - White wire, power out to Fuse 1 (and hence Fuse 2)
56B - Yellow wire, power out to Main Beam solenoid
The above 3 wires are the circuit activated by the solenoid

56b - Two Blacks, one to earth on dashboard, the other to cigarette lighter
56 - White/Black wire from column stalk
These wires provide the earth path to the column stalks

As you see, I have bench tested the solenoid to confirm these connections. I'd be interested to know if you see any errors in what I've laid out.



  

[nistri]

In fairness I did not check where the various wires come from, although I confirm that this is a correct arrangement on my cars. Everything works OK and it has done so since I pulled out the dodgy unit (a problem often found in other friends' cars). Maybe for the British market the wiring system was changed.
To check for the connections I will need a bit of time, i.e. I cannot do it straight away, Andrea

[nthomas1]

Don’t worry Andrea, from the bench test I’m confident that the wiring is correct. I think you’re right about differences for the UK market. Ciao.

[lancialulu]

Don’t worry Andrea, from the bench test I’m confident that the wiring is correct. I think you’re right about differences for the UK market. Ciao.

My experience is the S2 UK market had H4 main dip and side light on the outer light unit and a switched pair of inner driving H1 lamps. I have yet to see a wiring diagram with H4. Maybe someone can disabuse me of this or provide the circuit.... Not sure about UK S1

[nthomas1]

Yes Tim, what you describe is also true of my car (UK spec S2):  low and main beam in the outer lamps; inner lamps as driving lamps, switched from the dashboard and operated via a relay tucked up behind the right side of the dashboard.  And none of this is reflected in the wiring diagram in my owner’s manual.

As you can see, the discussion with Andrea is focused largely on the sidelight solenoid.

[nthomas1]

Trimmed the two door cards today to get rid of the excessive curves along their top edges that stopped them fully tucking under the stainless steel retaining strips. Removed the staples and peeled the covers back.  Used the old door card as a template to scribe the line.  Then cut through with a sharp knife, with a metal rule underneath for protection.  Re-glued the covers back on.  They are now weighted down while setting overnight.  I'll fit the passenger one tomorrow, weather permitting.

[my69S1]

Norm, I have been following your thread diligently as many of the things you are doing I will be doing at some point.  Right now I am removing my headliner and was wondering if you can think back, how did you remove the rods.  I've unscrewed the 2 supports at the front and one at the back.  The headline has been pulled back all around so I can see the rod ends and I've tried pushing up on the centre to get them to bend but they are tight against the roof.  How do I get them out?  Thanks.

[nthomas1]

They can't arc enough while in the vertical position. You have to swivel them away from the roof and then pull them in from the sides.  You'll then have the clearance for them to arc enough for one end to pull out.  Start with the front one and swivel it towards the rear of the car, or start with the back one and swivel it towards the front.  Label the rods as you remove them as they’re not all the same length.  Good luck with it.

[nthomas1]

Well the replaced sidelight solenoid seems to have fixed a couple of the problems I had with the lighting circuits.  I'm now getting power to fuses 4 and 5 with main beam switched on which I wasn't with the old one.  Also, the low beams are now coming on consistently when activated whereas they were intermittent before. My main beam filaments are still not coming on, but I can now investigate the downstream part of the lighting circuit from the fuse panel to the lighting units.

Andrea suggested that the sidelight solenoid fitted to my car was the model fitted to later Fulvias.  Mine must have been either a pull-ahead factory engineering change or a retro-fit.  It's easy to see how the original CEAM unit would have been a target for cost reduction by the Fiat engineers.  You can see in the pictures how much smaller (and flimsier) the newer unit is.  One plus point though is that it made maintenance access much easier with all connectors on the forward facing surface.  That would have been attractive to the service department.

[nthomas1]

I decided to finish building up the passenger door today as I’m as I’m held up on electrics at the moment!

I fitted the interior pull handle and connected the cable up to the lock.  I’ve shown a picture of the two small brackets that hold the cable inside the door skin.  I’m sure that’s too much detail for most of you but there are a couple of people following this thread who are building Fulvias from boxes of parts who appreciate the help in identifying components.  The screw head for the first of these brackets can be seen to the left of the aperture in the first picture.  

My car came with the door stays in the boot and no hardware so I made up some slotted metal and rubber washers to match the TAV pictures.  

The rubber surrounds to my door push buttons had gone brittle and were breaking up.  I bought new ones but the holes in them were too small to get the buttons in - so useless and have been returned.  I found that a standard grommet could be used if the lower edge was bevelled with a sharp knife.  I’ve shown the dimensions in the pictures.

Having trimmed the tops of the new door cards (see earlier post), I found that other adjustments had to be made.  The openings for the interior door handles had to be enlarged, and around four of the holes around the perimeter of the cards used for the trim pegs had to be elongated.  I used the original card as a template to see which holes would need modification. After initial approximate adjustments were made I found that tucking the card under the top stainless trim strip and then temporarily holding it in place with the two screws for the armrest allowed the trim pegs to be inspected as they lined up against the receiving sockets.  The perimeter of the card stood proud by about 15mm due to the pegs protruding.  The resultant gap allowed inspection and measurement of any final adjustments.  I was able to note which pegs needed to be moved further or swivelled into position.

After fitting the card I attached the original window winder, arm rest, and lock cover plate, all of which had cleaned up well.   Finally, I fitted the door jamb cover plate which I’d had repaired as the bottom few inches had corroded away.  I found that I had to remove both internal and external weatherstrips in order to do this as the plates are a tight fit.  They certainly make the door openings look a lot more finished.

[simonandjuliet]

Don't worry Norm, we love the detail !

[frankxhv773t]

It's all lovely work Norman and a pleasure to watch. I always consider the fine detail is useful to people contemplating any dismantling as they can see all the hidden detail.

[Keithver]

Keep the detail Norm. I am one of the ones busy with mine. I've got loads of bits and pieces that need identifying. You have helped with those four little clips. Now I know where they go. Thanks. You are an inspiration. Keep it up. Your car is looking fantastic
Keith

[nthomas1]

I mentioned I’m stuck with my electrics.  The problems are with the lighting circuits.  The sidelights, indicators, hazard flashers and low beam headlamps all seem to be working correctly.

The problem is with main beams not working.  The three lighting solenoids: sidelight, low beam and main beam, are heavily interconnected.  They sit behind the fuse rack in the fuse panel.  

I have already replaced the late-model 7-pin sidelight solenoid for the earlier CEAM type in order to fix erratic behaviour of low beam.  But it has had no impact on the main beam problem. I am not getting any power to Fuse 5, which in turn feeds fuse 6, and which together feed the main beam circuits.

It looks like the changeover switch is not working (or not working consistently) in the 5-pin main beam solenoid.  That means that when the lighting stalk is pulled down and forward, power is still fed to the low beam solenoid (via pin 5) instead of switching over to pin 4 and feeding fuse 5 (and hence fuse 6) to feed the main beam circuit.

I do not have a spare 5-pin solenoid, but I do have a 4-pin one.  I have bench tested it to make sure it works correctly, and will wire it in tomorrow to try it out.  To wire it in means changing the interaction between low and main.  With a 4-pin main beam solenoid, the high current input from fuse 7 flows to the low beam solenoid and then on to high beam (which interestingly is what my wiring diagram shows), whereas in my car, with a 5-pin main beam solenoid, fuse 7 feeds power to the main beam solenoid, and it is forwarded from there to the low beam solenoid.  So I will have to simulate that arrangement.

I will report on how I get on with this.

The main reason for this post, apart from providing an update, is to ask about voltages at the fuse rack.  With my very limited knowledge of  electrics I don’t know whether the voltages that I’m seeing at the rack are correct or not.  The table below shows what voltages I’m getting at fuses 7 (constantly on) and fuse 3 (for low beam) and fuse 1 (for sidelights).  Start point is a battery voltage of 10.8.  I’m having to take the battery indoors for recharging every so often, so 10.8 volts reflects current state of charge.  

Should I expect to see a drop in voltage at fuse 7 when fuse 1 is activated via sidelight slider switch?  And should I see the further drop in voltage on fuse 7 and drop in fuse 1 when fuse 3 is activated via pulling the lighting stalk down?  These voltages were all recorded without the engine running (as fuel system is not connected yet).

[davidwheeler]

You should not see any significant drop in voltage as things are switched on but that may be due to the knackered battery that is just unable to take even a small load without a drop in voltage. .As voltage is so low your battery is poor.  Nearer 12.5 volts should be shown on a charged battery at rest.   Go and buy a new battery for a start, that one is clearly shot.  If you run the engine, you should then see 14.7 volts or very near.   The voltages at all    the fuses should also be very near 14.7 volts.  Either you have a lot of very dirty connections in there, in which case no wonder nothing works as it should or it is the state of the battery.   If a new battery does not help then a spray of switch cleaner in the switches may work wonders otherwise you have to take it all apart and clean it - but first check that all the connections are clean and sound.