I tried to get this finished by tomorrow for when the missus returns to work after the Christmas break, but I've been thwarted by various parts problems and our laxydasic postal system. I'm waiting on a new battery that's actually the right size for an import battery tray, not too big like the one the 3 local factors tried to sell me.
I also ended up getting in an argument with one of the parts monkeys about wether this car had a/c or not. You will notice In the pic above of the stripped out engine bay, on the right had side of the pic below the power steering pump, there is an air-con compressor. I took this as the first clue that it had. The second was the big button on the dash that says 'A/C' on it. It's fairly obvious that A/C and non-A/C cars require a different belt. But the knob at the factors insisted it couldn't have A/C. I then informed him it was an import, so the information he was using wasn't applicable. He proceeded to insist even an import couldn't have had A/C at this age.
So I told him to stick his incorrect belt up his
, and bought them online instead. For half the price, delivered.
And factors moan about the hard time they have these days against online competition. There's a reason for that......
But, it means waiting for deliveries to get the right parts. Meh.
Anyway, onto the foglight saga.
I bought a red LED 21w bulb, to convert the o/s reversing light to a fog, so there wasn't a big curse word bolt on thing hanging under the bumper.
Simply swap the bulb, trace the reverse light wire back through the light, snip it at the loom, isolate the end then solder in a new wire running down to the switch. I used the existing one that had been for the one mounted underneath.
Here I am waiting for the soldering iron to warm up, so I can solder and heatshrink it up in the dark and freezing fog-
First bit sorted, and I'd also bought a rare/hard to find factory fog switch with built in tell-tale. I still don't know what particular spec these are for, as J cars never had them and uk spec cars had the tell tale in the gauge cluster. Still, they can be found if you look hard enough, or bought new for about £40. This came from Suffolk Mazda for a lot less.
But, on testing it, i couldn't get the tell tale to work. I knew you have to add an extra earth for it, which I had done, but still no dice.
So it had to come apart to see why-
These switches are incredibly well made, and fairly serviceable too. Turns out it was a blown bulb, had probably just been dropped or something.
Some Facebook advice from those that know more than me about such things (cheers
rich), a trip to maplins and 29p lighter later, it's all working again-
For reference, I used a 5mm high efficiency internally resistor-ed red led, code CK48C, so it just slots straight in in place of the bulb. I chose this over the super bright red option as I surmised it will only ever be used at night/low visibility, so I didn't want a mega bright light-up-the-whole-interior type output, just enough to tell its on. I went for red as orange wasn't available in this spec.
Got to big up maplin though, the guy there was massively helpful and got me just what I needed from a vague description and a pic of the inside of the switch.