The next job started on a whim, and does nothing to improved the looks, performance, or reliability of the Caddy. In truth it could be said to be a pointless waste of time and effort, except it makes me smile, which is the whole point of this project really. My history with Morris Minors has led to something which is becoming a tradition with my builds, which is that I try to incorporate a part from a Minor into every project. On my Ibiza I use a Minor light switch for map switching, and on the Caddy I had the idea to fit a Minor horn. The horn fitted to 1950s Minors was a huge steampunk thing, with a deep, klaxon-like sound, just what the Caddy needs.
I still have a few Minor parts in my lock-up, so the next time I went over there I retrieved this.
I last owned a Minor almost 20 years ago, and this horn and another had been sat in the lock-up ever since. It looked like it too. More in hope than expectation I stripped the ends of the wires and connected 12v, but my expectations were proved correct, and no sound ensued. That would have been just too easy.
Before taking the horn apart, I gave the casing a good clean. Inside, there really is not much to go wrong. A bit of attention from some sandpaper on the contacts, followed by a drop of oil on the armature shaft, was all it took to restore function. Whilst the casing was apart it was given a couple of coats of satin black Hammerite.
The screw holding the casing together was quite rusty, as it was entitled to be having not been undone for perhaps 60 years. It was presumably a Whitworth or BA thread, and I did not have a direct replacement. Instead I drilled and re-tapped the mounting bracket with an M5 thread so that I could use a nice stainless countersunk screw.
The wiring was tidied-up with some convoluted sleeve, and a new connector, before I reassembled the casing.
The Minor horn is likely to draw significantly more current than the puny little part it is replacing, so rather than doing a straight swap I decided to switch the Minor horn via a relay. The obvious location for this new relay is alongside the radiator cooling fan relay, which is on the bulkhead, beneath the scuttle, on the nearside between the battery and the inner wing.
Anyone who has read this thread all the way through will know that wiring is my thing, and as such I was unlikely to take the simplest route to implement the relay circuit. I have uncovered a few nasties during previous forays into the Caddy's wiring, so I thought I would probably find something else worth sorting if I had a look at the loom including the wiring to the horn, and so it proved. I disconnected the wiring from the offside headlamp unit and indicator, as well as the horn, so I could pull that section of loom to the top of the inner wing where it would be easier to get at.
This was then relieved of its wrapping tape back as far as the junction with the indicator repeater wiring. This showed me that there was a grey cable which had nowhere to go at the front corner, plus a similarly unused earth wire, and that something else had been spliced-in between the sidelight and main beam wires at some point. The unused grey wire is likely to be for foglights, which I do not have and cannot fit due to the FMIC, so this was removed, as was the stub of cable remaining from the spliced connections. This left me with some (probably fine, but unsightly) solder joints in the main beam and sidelight wires. More on these later.
The horn had been mounted on the inner wheel arch adjacent to the top mount, although the wires were wrapped within the loom all the way to the front corner, so once they were unwrapped they were plenty long enough to go across the bulkhead to the new relay coil, with no extensions required. There was easy access to a fused 12v supply for the feed side of the relay contacts, so I just had to run a new cable from the other contact terminal to the new horn, and make use of the previously unused earth connection exactly where I needed it in the loom. Things were falling nicely into place. It generally feels like that in the moments before you encounter a problem.
With the connections all made, and before I put any effort into making things look right, I re-fitted the battery and plugged-in the Minor horn. When I then pressed the horn button; nothing. A quick investigation, partly using a test lead I made from the wires previously spliced-in to the headlamp cabling, confirmed my new circuit was working fine, but the horn about which I had previously made the "not much to go wrong" statement had in fact found a way to go wrong.
I took the horn casing apart again, and this time I dismantled the little sandwich of connectors and insulators which I had previously left alone. It took me a couple of goes to work out what should be connected and what should be insulated, but then I cleaned all the contact surfaces with some emery paper and reassembled it.
Once re-connected to the pick-up, the horn now operated as it should on the push of the button. Lesson learnt, I will try to avoid tempting fate with bold statements in future.
Back to the spliced solder joints in the main beam and sidelight wires. I could have tidied these joints up, or re-insulated them with tape on the basis that they have not given any trouble up to now, but I have a few bits of Felicia/Caddy looms kicking about, so I found another offside headlamp loom, and extracted the terminals with lengths of white and green/red cable I needed to do a proper job. Once the replacement terminals were fitted into the headlamp connector, I cut the original and replacement wires and made soldered connections in the part of the loom which will be supported, and wrapped in tape. This obviously looks better, and also decreases the likelihood of these joints failing due to mechanical stress.
While the loom was unwrapped, I replaced conspicuous red insulated crimp terminals on the side indicator repeater with soldered joints, and relocated the inner wing grommet where it was supposed to be, then I re-wrapped the loom.
One of the jobs on my to do list for the Caddy is to shift the coolant header tank. This is currently on the offside inner wing, as can be seen in the photo above, which means it is roughly at the same level as the cylinder head. I want to put it in the offside rear corner of the engine bay, which will allow me to make it the highest point in the cooling system, as it should be. When I do that, I will locate the Minor horn in the space at the front corner which the header tank currently occupies. The modified horn wires I have put in are for its eventual location, so I made up an extension loom reaching back to the rear corner to accommodate the temporary location for the horn fixed to the top mount / strut brace mounting bolt.
The new wiring achieves my aim of being pretty inconspicuous in the engine bay.
I still have a few Minor parts in my lock-up, so the next time I went over there I retrieved this.
I last owned a Minor almost 20 years ago, and this horn and another had been sat in the lock-up ever since. It looked like it too. More in hope than expectation I stripped the ends of the wires and connected 12v, but my expectations were proved correct, and no sound ensued. That would have been just too easy.
Before taking the horn apart, I gave the casing a good clean. Inside, there really is not much to go wrong. A bit of attention from some sandpaper on the contacts, followed by a drop of oil on the armature shaft, was all it took to restore function. Whilst the casing was apart it was given a couple of coats of satin black Hammerite.
The screw holding the casing together was quite rusty, as it was entitled to be having not been undone for perhaps 60 years. It was presumably a Whitworth or BA thread, and I did not have a direct replacement. Instead I drilled and re-tapped the mounting bracket with an M5 thread so that I could use a nice stainless countersunk screw.
The wiring was tidied-up with some convoluted sleeve, and a new connector, before I reassembled the casing.
The Minor horn is likely to draw significantly more current than the puny little part it is replacing, so rather than doing a straight swap I decided to switch the Minor horn via a relay. The obvious location for this new relay is alongside the radiator cooling fan relay, which is on the bulkhead, beneath the scuttle, on the nearside between the battery and the inner wing.
Anyone who has read this thread all the way through will know that wiring is my thing, and as such I was unlikely to take the simplest route to implement the relay circuit. I have uncovered a few nasties during previous forays into the Caddy's wiring, so I thought I would probably find something else worth sorting if I had a look at the loom including the wiring to the horn, and so it proved. I disconnected the wiring from the offside headlamp unit and indicator, as well as the horn, so I could pull that section of loom to the top of the inner wing where it would be easier to get at.
This was then relieved of its wrapping tape back as far as the junction with the indicator repeater wiring. This showed me that there was a grey cable which had nowhere to go at the front corner, plus a similarly unused earth wire, and that something else had been spliced-in between the sidelight and main beam wires at some point. The unused grey wire is likely to be for foglights, which I do not have and cannot fit due to the FMIC, so this was removed, as was the stub of cable remaining from the spliced connections. This left me with some (probably fine, but unsightly) solder joints in the main beam and sidelight wires. More on these later.
The horn had been mounted on the inner wheel arch adjacent to the top mount, although the wires were wrapped within the loom all the way to the front corner, so once they were unwrapped they were plenty long enough to go across the bulkhead to the new relay coil, with no extensions required. There was easy access to a fused 12v supply for the feed side of the relay contacts, so I just had to run a new cable from the other contact terminal to the new horn, and make use of the previously unused earth connection exactly where I needed it in the loom. Things were falling nicely into place. It generally feels like that in the moments before you encounter a problem.
With the connections all made, and before I put any effort into making things look right, I re-fitted the battery and plugged-in the Minor horn. When I then pressed the horn button; nothing. A quick investigation, partly using a test lead I made from the wires previously spliced-in to the headlamp cabling, confirmed my new circuit was working fine, but the horn about which I had previously made the "not much to go wrong" statement had in fact found a way to go wrong.
I took the horn casing apart again, and this time I dismantled the little sandwich of connectors and insulators which I had previously left alone. It took me a couple of goes to work out what should be connected and what should be insulated, but then I cleaned all the contact surfaces with some emery paper and reassembled it.
Once re-connected to the pick-up, the horn now operated as it should on the push of the button. Lesson learnt, I will try to avoid tempting fate with bold statements in future.
Back to the spliced solder joints in the main beam and sidelight wires. I could have tidied these joints up, or re-insulated them with tape on the basis that they have not given any trouble up to now, but I have a few bits of Felicia/Caddy looms kicking about, so I found another offside headlamp loom, and extracted the terminals with lengths of white and green/red cable I needed to do a proper job. Once the replacement terminals were fitted into the headlamp connector, I cut the original and replacement wires and made soldered connections in the part of the loom which will be supported, and wrapped in tape. This obviously looks better, and also decreases the likelihood of these joints failing due to mechanical stress.
While the loom was unwrapped, I replaced conspicuous red insulated crimp terminals on the side indicator repeater with soldered joints, and relocated the inner wing grommet where it was supposed to be, then I re-wrapped the loom.
One of the jobs on my to do list for the Caddy is to shift the coolant header tank. This is currently on the offside inner wing, as can be seen in the photo above, which means it is roughly at the same level as the cylinder head. I want to put it in the offside rear corner of the engine bay, which will allow me to make it the highest point in the cooling system, as it should be. When I do that, I will locate the Minor horn in the space at the front corner which the header tank currently occupies. The modified horn wires I have put in are for its eventual location, so I made up an extension loom reaching back to the rear corner to accommodate the temporary location for the horn fixed to the top mount / strut brace mounting bolt.
The new wiring achieves my aim of being pretty inconspicuous in the engine bay.
