1955 Standard 10

[ben711200]

Big wires all round then ;D I'll drop by a motorfactors tomorrow or Monday Tuesday to sort it.

[volvo740]

Love this car, can I ask, is it small? It looks small on the pics, like Austin a35 ish, or is it a lot bigger?

[speedy88]

Good work mr ben I look forward to seeing this at some point.

[ben711200]

May 4, 2012 21:51:57 GMT volvo740 said:

Love this car, can I ask, is it small? It looks small on the pics, like Austin a35 ish, or is it a lot bigger?

A35 is probably a fair comparison. It's absolutely tiny! The back of the front seats is behind the b pillar, for example (making 3 point belts near impossible). Space inside is surprisingly ok due to a lack of anything at all that could be construed as superfluous.

[Adz]

i like that its cool with out trying to hard

[ben711200]

Me and Bec dropped our baby off with my Dad today and went for a little trundle around the Somerset countryside to stately homes and cider farms and stuff. We racked up around 75 trouble free miles (and obtained a case of cider from Perry's Cider Mill in Dowlish Wake ;D) in the Standard. It's really confidence inspiring that it seems to just keep going without making too many odd noises or going wrong!

By the time we got back, I had though, lost the use of all of my indicators. It's annoying but it gives me an excuse to sort them out how I want them. Starting inside, the switch feels worn and is bent to a funny angle, and even when it's working, I can't see the light for the indicators because it's on the end of the stalk and invariably directly behind my wrist.

The rear indicators are in clear lenses which looks totally out of place to me. Red would look best, orange is less likely to get me crashed into. I (legally) need to put some reflectors back on. They were originally where the indicators are now so I may put them there and mount some indicators discreetly below the bumper or something.

The fronts are still combined with the side lights. The logical thing to do here will be to have the sidelights in the headlamps and put the clever silver bulbs in the sidelight units to give me orange front indicators.

Should keep me occupied for a couple weekends

[Seth]

I've used this page as reference for alternator conversions a couple of times.

home.clara.co.uk/northcotts/tsscdevon/technical/alternator/alternator.html

[Mystery Machine]

May 5, 2012 21:11:58 GMT ben711200 said:

Me and Bec went for a little trundle around the Somerset countryside to stately homes and cider farms and stuff.

^^ This made me chuckle. It also made my day, just picturing you two pottering around in the car. So perfect! ;D

May 5, 2012 21:11:58 GMT ben711200 said:

By the time we got back, I had though, lost the use of all of my indicators. It's annoying but it gives me an excuse to sort them out how I want them.

I think it's one of those cars where excuses are more a way of saying, "I can't wait to spend a bit more time giving this car some love & attention"

It makes me smile just thinking of you owning it. Can't wait to see it.

[PhilA]

With regards to the light staying on with the alternator- had this issue before. The alternator has to bleed off a little current through the bulb to stay charging. With the original bulb, which will be something tiny like a 1.2W doesn't take much to get it to glow. Originally with the dynamo it was a non-issue as the contacts literally switched the light off when the dynamo was making charge.

If the slight glow irks you, best thing is to fit a resistor in parallel with the light to a good ground, I think something like 500 Ohm 5W (I used one of those big white ceramic jobs from Maplin) got the light in mine to go out when it was charging.

--Phil

[jamesp]

i have another set of the resd lights that are on the rear the glass lens type that i had originaly intended to fit where the clears are (they were a temp bodge) as i didnt have the right hole saw to fit the red ones shout if you want em mate ill post em over

[ben711200]

Thanks James. I'll fire you a pm when I'm not browsing from my phone


No massive updates yet. Indicator gremlins are being rectified and I'm taking photos as I go so will update when I get to a suitable point.I will also just say for now that Kev of Wales, Lord Tat-hauler of Abergele is a legend

[hairnet]

lump of tat for the front or the back ;D

[ben711200]

Here's where we are at the moment


All's going well. I'm loving driving it and the closer I look the more grot and bodges I spot. It's everything I wanted and expected ;D

My modern digital multimeter is getting tempramental so I've dug this out. It may not give me a reading to within millivolts or whatever but it's reliable, gives a good visual representation of what's going on and is period correct for the car



So with that and these two books, I'm well armed to figure it out. I actually picked up the Haynes book at the National Trust place the other day.. They had a book sale ;D


I've fathomed my indictors gremlins. They stopped working altogether as I'd disturbed the horribly corroded wiring to the flasher relay when doing the alternator conversion. contacts cleaned and reassembled, I had indicators that flashed, albeit too quick like a bulb was out.


I spotted that when I turn them on, the warning bulb flashes once, and then stops. Most odd. Using my retro multimeter I confirmed that the problem lies with the flasher relay so I'll get another one ordered.

This may or may not get used as it would be far more visible. Probably won't bother since the self cancelling works well


In other news. I found the starting handle in the boot!

A quick check showed I still have the correct dog (I think that's the correct term, I'm sure I've heard VileRug say it) and I managed to turn the engine over using it

I opted out of actually starting on the handle. I value my wrists too much <<insert comment about masterbation here>>

I picked these up 'just in case' as well. They're HA Viva engine mounts that by some fluke line up with the mounts on Herald and Spitfire engines. Just in case...

[ben711200]

I also fitted the additional cable from the alternator today and was stupid enough to connect the battery end first, then let it dangle onto the engine block where it drained the battery before I even realised

This led to me rolling down the hill backward to bump start it, much to the bemusement of some neighbours. My light is still glowing, but the battery is reading 13.8 volts when the engine is running which I think is the lower end of acceptable. I think I'll do the mod that Phil suggested.

Today has also shown a quirk or two with the locks. If you lock it on the handle inside, then the key doesn't do anything. This could potentially be an issue- I locked the keys in the car with it running this evening! Without going into too much detail, I was saved by the fact that cars of the 1950s aren't exactly hard to get into.

Also had my first 'Do you want to sell it?' this evening!

[Rich]

Ben, my advice towards the indicator unit is to get a more modern 3 pin 'black box' one you find on most modern cars (and in the VWP catalog) and not use the tin can bimetallic job. For a daily I'd rather have the reliability of a regular flash interval and a slightly out of period part than indicators that are affected by the ambient temperature/engine revs/colour of your hat.
Its easy enough to fit, using the 2 wires you already have, you only need to add an earth for the relay. Otherwise, keep up the good work chap, glad you are learning electrics

[ben711200]

May 12, 2012 20:38:31 GMT Rich said:

Ben, my advice towards the indicator unit is to get a more modern 3 pin 'black box' one you find on most modern cars (and in the VWP catalog) and not use the tin can bimetallic job. For a daily I'd rather have the reliability of a regular flash interval and a slightly out of period part than indicators that are affected by the ambient temperature/engine revs/colour of your hat.
Its easy enough to fit, using the 2 wires you already have, you only need to add an earth for the relay. Otherwise, keep up the good work chap, glad you are learning electrics

My hats are almost all the same colour ;D

Good point, I'll look it up now, but it would be a 4 pin one as my tin can one is 3 pin. It isn't a daily but I'm all for anything that makes it a little less treacherous around mindless fools

[Rich]

If you already have 3 pin you may not need to 'convert' it to 3 wires. The one it has may be the same wiring as a modern unit

[ben711200]

A little update

My driveway has a little knee height wall surrounding it on three sides. Here's a close up of part of it.



That's not spray paint. It's exhaust deposits. Bit rich ;D

As a temporary measure, I covered the rear exhaust lenses in orange glass paint so they at least flash a legal colour


The cider bottle with a tube is not a homemade smoking device




After managing to totally discharge the battery when fitting the additional alternator cable, something hasn't been quite right with the electrics. After recharging the battery, I refitted it and it discharged itself after a few days of not being used. Considering the very quick discharge, I assumed I'd damaged the battery (and had my thoughts confirmed by asking friends through Facebook) and opted to buy a replacement, as well, as well as a fancy smart charger, taking advantage of the opportunity to get something with the poles the correct way round for my newly reversed polarity.



Thing is, I put the old battery on a very slow charge and it appears to be holding it's electrickery fine. And the new one appears to very slowly discharge as if there's a current draw.


This is what the voltage across the battery reads when it's running at idle. 13.6 volts. Acceptable if a tad low.


And with the engine off after a 30 mile drive. Perhaps a bit low?


I did a 30 mile drive this morning, and got the above reading, and then checked it before my drive back 9 or 10 hours later and it was reading almost exactly 12V. That suggests something is draining the battery to me?? Maybe I should disconnect the battery to repeat the test. It's still connected at the moment so I will check again tomorrow evening to check I'm not going mad.

What confuses me is that I don't have any extra electrical equipment at all so can't see that there is anything that would cause the drain. It appears to have started since I added the extra alternator wire not that it should cause this. It runs directly from the alternator's output terminal, to the battery side of the starter solenoid which you can make out in the above picture. The only area of questionable quality permanently connected to the battery is the bypassed voltage regulator. I'm open to ideas if anyone has any!


The back of the alternator..

The main earth from the battery goes to the nearest convenient place which happens to be the alternator casing.
2 small wires from the alternator. One is the 'sense' wire which has gone to the battery side of the starter solenoid (I've put stuff there as it was tidier than going direct to the battery) and the other is the warning lamp wire, joined into the original loom with a pair of spade connectors, covered in tape because I lost my heatshrink
The terminal on the back has the original dynamo charging wire and the additional fat cable that goes to the battery side of the solenoid again.

[G A R'goyle]

A question: Are you using the regulator from dynamo setup?
That alternator looks to have its own internal.
If your battery goes dead i guess it is caused by the old volt reg

my suggestion is check if alt has internal reg and skip the dynamo one

And F F S is the neg terminal from battery directly to alt mount?
Remember that the engine has rubber mounts and need to be grounded to the chassi

[ben711200]

May 22, 2012 19:57:09 GMT G A R'goyle said:

A question: Are you using the regulator from dynamo setup?
That alternator looks to have its own internal.
If your battery goes dead I guess it is caused by the old volt reg

my suggestion is check if alt has internal reg and skip the dynamo one

And F F S is the neg terminal from battery directly to alt mount?
Remember that the engine has rubber mounts and need to be grounded to the chassi

It's internally regulated and the old regulator has been bypassed but is still in place.

It is, I'll double check that the engine is also grounded to the chassis- I've done nothing more than swap like for like so it's not like it would be a new factor. And no need to swear