This might take more than the winter but I’m not in a rush. It’s a real pleasure to get back on the tools after more than a two year break. Making progress again feels great.
This page will chronicle two major upgrades for the car alongside a number of smaller jobs which will be completed along the way. Back in 2022 the hazards on the car stopped working. After some problem chasing, I concluded the issue was in the wiring somewhere. I like new technology and am not great at electrics. After a bit of advice from the kit car community someone brought the existence of Body Control Units (sometime called PDMs) to my attention. The BCU is effectively a computer that runs all of the electronics in the car that the ECU doesn’t. It does away with the need for separate fuses and relays. In doing so, it very much simplifies the electrics.
Given I no longer trust the wiring in the car, and I don’t have a wiring diagram, I decided to rewire the full car with a SimTek Body Logic BCU. As a treat, I’m going to pair this with an Aim Straza digital dash.
At the same time I will be converting the car from carbs to ITBs using a kit from DanST Engineering I bought over 3 years ago. To do this will also require the replacement of the fuel pump, ECU and accelerator cable (with much more I am sure!).
09/11/2024: In order to get a sensible handle on the scale of the challenge, and whilst I wait for the BCU to be delivered, the first task was to start to strip the car. The most important part of this was removing the scuttle. As usual, this took me longer than perhaps it should!
The scuttle is held on by only four bolts. On the driver’s side these were only marginally difficult to get to. On the passenger’s side they were a nightmare. In the area where a glove box would normally be, there was an aluminium panel holding the relays and fuses. This was riveted to the rest of the car. There was also the ECU in the way of the hardest to reach bolts.
So out came the ECU (easy enough) and then I drilled out all of the rivets holding the panel in place. Once cleared, it then only took me 20 minutes of hand-wrist contortion to get the other two bolts out. Here are a few pictures of activity.
So… the rats rest is now visible! Nothing is labelled so this reaffirms I’ve probably done the right thing. The next step will be tracing the wires that run to the rear of the car. I’ll trace these, start to unpick them and see if I can fully disconnect the loom.
Tim’s Tiger blog 