Hi,
I bought a Ford Sierra xr4x4 to a friend, we initially found it in a body shop repair but they never managed to make it start (that what they said and they did a poor job at painting / fixing it). Fixed the no starting issue by plugging the sparkplug lead in the correct firing order then my friend sold it to me. Got it MOTed then left it on my drive for 5 years 7 year it's now time to restart it and fix a few issue I had with the wiring loom. That included changring the fuse bos as most of the contact were coroded and changing/fixing the loom itself as some wire go coroded (the one for the central locking)





the fuse box that started to miss behave





old fuse box out

time to solder the new DIY one in place


all fuse and reley soldered back in placeAfter this Fuse box transplant the car started straightway, I didn’t expect that and my college at work too

 

Next issue in line was the fuel tank, itwas


the rusty ring is gone, well disolve would be more acruate



Time to clean it




got it painted


is tile to make a new ring




rusty and leaking

 

is this the same part

https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/233573019429

Regards
Dave

 

thanks, i will buy one when I will fit the new fuel tank

 

It's loom removal time:




The "fixed" fuse bio has to go out.

Labeling of all the plug so I can findout where they were plugged to



Vbat and GND cable (to was a mess and someone modifyed the loom arround here)



Job half way donne


Loom completely removed and pinned to the floor for revers-engineering

 

The plan is to replace all the wire by a CAN line and a power line.


Twisting the CAN line



Preparing the power cable to be twisted arround the CAN line (I know there's a hole in my socks)



Half the job donne



Fabric tape all arround



Power part of the light ECU I'm making. there will be one on eache corner of the car to control the light, the red pcb is the conreoller connected via can that will switch on or off the light and give a feedback of the curent going into the bulb / short circuit / open circuit



PCB cooking in a reflow oven to solder the botum pad (Vbat)



Closup on the arduino nano connected to a nucleo board for programming/debugging



The power board with tha cable that connect to the light







First try

 

Next on the list is, replacing the core plug on the engine blok, after figirit out whitch wire to connect to the fuel pump and engine ECU to start the engine it founs that all the coolent was leaking from the back of the engine.

 

thats a hell of a project your taking on there,good luck with it

 

I love modernisation projects like this. Whats the reason for targetting the lights in this way though? As in, what functionality are you really gaining? Or is this purely a doing because you can, rather than you need to (which I'm all for - wish I was this confident with electronics )

 

Thanks @THE RADMAN , I will need a lot of it, the weather, work and baby dont help .

@haz87 , the raison for the fuse box in the first place was the fact that half of the contact where corroded and I think one on them was completely rusted away.
For the light, nothing was wrong in the first place, that was the central locking wire the issue. Somehow one of the wires got the insulation cut and the coper inside started to oxidise, and at some point, it started stop being a wire depending on how hard I was slamming the door. That what started the "letch make my own wiring" and because I'm working with ECU, CAN and electronic/embedded system in general I decided to modernise the car.

To start, I plan to have the car working as it was before, with the original dash, and a “custom switch panel” for the light, fog light, wipers, etc … as the wiring is a mess one the comodo, I couldn’t figure out the indicators (haven’t tried hard enough but they will be changed later). The engine management stay the same and hopefully I get an MOT.

Next that will be adding prox key, remote start (should be easy as I already connected the necessary wire to start the engine without the main loom, just need to replace the ignition barrel with a couple of relay and I can start the car electronically with a microcontroller), and CRT for the infotainment/dashboard like the 1986 Buick Riviera (why ? because that look awesome). I’m not sure how the CRT will survive the vibration as the will be from old oscilloscope (dead part from Ebay) and not really design to be on the road.

I also want to change the engine ECU and add a compressor to the mix. The injection system is really old, it has to inject 3 time to get the correct amount of fuel because the ECU only have injector driver that drive 3 injectors at the same time.
No tuning capability out of the box, I probably have to change the eprom or rom in the ECC IV if I want to do that.

 

That's how the light work at the moment (I fixed the issue with the indicator not flashing in sync)

 

I finally got my engine hoist and a dry ish weather so it time to try to get the engine out. I think the core plug are rusty and one is leaking as I see coolant poring from the back of the engine while running.


I will have to lift the car and keep the engine on the floor to get it out, that's what the manual said.

Anti roll bar bolts


Only 4 bolt on the subframe and the engine is free ish, I also meed to remove the anti roll bare, the gear box as I can't access the bolt, the transmission shaft, and the break caliper if I don't want to drain the system.

I forgot the exhaust has to go too as one of the clamp holding the pip near the exhaust manifold is completely rusted and can't remove that bolt. I got lucky unbolting the model section and shaking it set it free.

As soon as the weather get better and it's not dark. I should be able to get the engine out.