Thanks, guys,

Clarke: I didn't think of that tape! That would have made this a Lot easier!
I didn't want to put in rivets because they would look sort of, well, clunky. There's not room there for much more that a phone or set of keys, so something heavy would have to be Really heavy. Besides, the only next owner will be the Recyclers.

Jose: I thought about the flocking paint but the trinket shelf is right there and has felt, and I was trying to match that as closely as possible.

About the drains; I've been thinking about that all Winter. There are No stains from dripping/running water on the tunnel or the bulkhead. There has Never been a moldy smell in the car, the carpets have Never been wet since I've been driving this car. When I ripped up the front carpets they were DRY!

I can only think the original rust came from that windshield leak over 30 years ago and the existing rust was never addressed properly so it just kept growing from ambient moisture.

I found the panel you mention, it doesn't look like the seal has ever been broken but it has a heavy duty version of sheet metal cap screws holding it in place. There is No evidence of the entry of water or even dust around it so I thought I would leave it alone.

 

well at least you know where the panel is now. My '65 S type has two, one on each side,
I used bathroom caulking to seal them after investigating what the heck they were. Secret compartments I thought.

 

Faq'd as requested...

 

As I mentioned at the beginning of this thread, the inside of this console was a mess when I first took it all apart. In the intervening months a lot of work has been done on other parts of the car and the wiring harnesses got a bit tangled to say the very least.

The harness for the rear window switches has to lie Under the rear air box I finally discovered, because they simply won't go any other way. After that, everything went together much easier.

Everything was so crowded in that confined space that one of the air ducts was actually crushed and deformed. One of the reasons was so much extraneous Stuff crammed in a Very limited space. Carpet for example.

Notice in the pictures below how the left duct was crushed. There is actually an imprint of the duct on the foam protecting the shift cable and the carpet! No wonder the duct was crushed!





I cut out a Large portion of carpet from both sides of the tunnel resulting in at least 3/8 inch more space! That might not seem like a lot, but as Crammed as everything has to be to fit under there, 3/8 inch is a Lot! It means the difference between fighting the console into place and it merely sitting politely.





I could easily tell how much to cut out by where the duct has to lie to be connected to the air box for the back seat. The right duct was so mangled and misshapen it refused to connect to the box until I forced a round steel disc into it to roundify it again. You can see the difference in the picture below.



Also, the construction of the duct allows it to be stretched by pulling or compacted by pushing together, little like a dryer duct. By gently stretching the duct, and with the aid of a right-angle pick I was able to put the duct properly on the air box for the first time in probably 30 years!




This is one of those tasks where Everything has to be in the right place in the right position at the right time or nothing fits.

Next, the alarm LED.
(';')

 

yeahh the two floor ducts go on each side of the tunnel, and the wiring harness goes at the center straight back.

Actually there is plenty space under the plastic tray. In my car, the ducts are plastic tubing "accordions", not the engine-air-intake-hose that you seem to have. I think those are replacements.

 

Thank you, Jose,
I would not be the Least bit surprised to discover these are replacements. Nope, not at all. The way other things were mangled in this car I'm sometimes astonished when I find a part that actually says BL on it somewhere.
(';')

 

you could get ones from a Series 3. Check with David at Everyday XJ

as long as your wiring is doing the job, then just use vinyl ties to keep the harness together.

 

I may have mentioned earlier how the Alarm LED had been installed from the top and wired directly into the Viper unit. The wires had been cut and crimped together by a previous worker. In order to get things apart this time I had to cut those wires yet again.

Since this is at least the second time in the 30 years since installation that the ski slope has had to come out it seemed like a good idea to make it easier to take that pair of wires apart for the next time -- I'm Sure there will be a Next Time.

There is such little current involved in such a confined space that I didn't want to do a pair of bullet or spade connectors. Besides I like a challenge.

There were a couple old dead computer motherboards in husband's closet which he was gathering up for the electronics recycling collection day. There I found Exactly what I wanted!

I clipped the female end off a hard drive and cut out the male fan socket. Now to make them work.

When I cut the wires I left plenty of length to work with. They're such Tiny wires it was hard to strip them without wrecking them but I happened to have an equally tiny stripping tool, and stripped about 1/4 inch, about the length of the prongs on the underside of the socket on the motherboard. Unfortunately I was quite focused that day and didn't get a picture of that part.

I was careful to put three (3) lengths of heat-shrink tubing over the wires first! One length for each pin and one to encase the whole connector. You can see in the pictures below.

I had to be careful not to melt the socket so I had to be quick but it worked! Below is a picture of the male connector attached to the underside of the console, and to the right the female end, also close-ups for demonstration. There is a good, solid connection between them.







Next, solder the female connector into the car. That was a little intense because I just put the carpets in and the seat was clean and there was no place to set my soldering vise. So I laid a stick over the console and worked like that.



This end was easier because I had a length of wire to work with as opposed to a socket from a motherboard. I cut them to different lengths to make a smoother splice.

First the heat-shrink went over Both wires as before, and then each wire individually (3 length as previously); and then crimped the connectors on, and then soldered the connectors to the wires. Then slipped the heat-shrink over the soldered crimp connectors (AFTER they've cooled!), and last, the heat-shrink over both wires, extending over the female end.

You can see the finished product below. All that's left is to connect the two together in the car.



(';')

 

excelent work in miniature! Not to mention the connector is even marked LED.

you don't say how you heated the heat shrink tubing? I use a hair dryer in the high heat and high speed, let it run for a few minutes until the air gets hot, then heat shrink the tubing, slow to get it to shrink but it does not damage the wire insulation.

 

Thank you, Jose!
Choice of the LED connector was deliberate. I was pretty sure it was enough to do what needed to be done.

I've attached a picture of my soldering pencil below. The tip of course is the business part, but where the red arrows point is where I heat the shrink tubing.

It's small enough for this sort of sort of fine work, gets the tubing hot enough after a while (it can actually touch the tubing I'm shrinking, that speeds up the process), and doesn't damage the insulation if I'm careful. I only have to be extra careful in Really Close quarters.
(';')

 

Really nice work, Elinor ! But, we've gotten to expect that!


When I did the lumping back in the 2001 - 2004 era, I became acquainted with shrink tubing. Before that, my electrics were merely taped. But, it was back in he late 40's that I transitioned from cloth electrician's tape to vinyl. A school pal had a summer job with the local utility and it had just transitioned as well.


So, to shrink the tubing at first, I used book matches. got lucky, no calamities.


Now, I have a "proper" HF sourced heat gun. It features low and high. Slick.


I did a couple with a hair dryer. Sorta OK, but veeery slow.


I do have a tool box marked "solder". A small iron and a really big one. A pistol grip Weller elsewhere. The little one, larger than Elinor's pencil iron does my wire solder well.


I just completed a relay harness for my ignition circuit. Another tool box marked "wiring". Crimp tool, strippers, wire vices, vestigial harnesses, etc.


Durn, lost my wire cutters. Last road stall out, I think!! But, I've others, one better anyway.


I think my Malasian built new starter bit the dust. Down and under as ssson as it gets a tad warmer. Gotta look up the warranty. But, do I really want another????


Elinor:


Do you really want that duct to send some cooling or heating to the back seat ?
Or, use that air up front and let the cold or warm travel in space to the rear as in a lot of other critters.


Just a thought.


Carl

 

Thank you, Carl! You're so kind.

I learned to solder as a pre-teen when Dad's brother decided I should learn the proper way to connect 2 wires. Crimps are OK in a pinch, he said, a convenient way for keeping things together in the meantime, but for a really solid, trouble free connection, Nothing beats soldering.

He also taught me to use the proper size tool for the job. Husband has a couple pistol grip Wellers (they weight a ton and buzz Horribly) but they're entirely too big for such fine work as this. And anyway this pencil is mine; I brought it with me and he doesn't get to use it. That way I always know where it is when I need it.

No, I do NOT want cool or warm air in the back seat but the ducts must be properly connected to the air box back there or there's no way to shut it off! I even taped shut those little flaps on the bottom of the box (they seem to be quite worthless anyway) because the little knobs wouldn't close them.

I knew I had a Massive AC leak somewhere because even when I closed the round vent in the back I didn't have any more air up front. I know why now that I've seen the shoddy way the tubes were connected (or rather, Weren't) but I'm confident I've fixed that now, because all the ducts are Properly fitted to all the other parts. I should have complete control over the air flow in the whole Climate Control system.
(';')

 

Jaguar has had a similar, center-console, "air distribution system" for the rear seat in all Small Saloons since the mid 1950's, in other words, totally null and void ha ha! i.e., it does not work !

In my '65 S type, there is a "open / close" knob in the front of the center-console, to prevent a little stream of air going into the rear floor exactly as in the XJ, using a similar plastic conduit tube. Mostly a cosmetic exercise, since the amount of air that reaches the rear seat is also null and void! Might as well open the window!

 

The tube to nowhere!!!


Carl

 

OK, it might not actually transport any air to the back, and blocking it by turning off the round vent might do nothing, but I *Knew* it wasn't right, and that Bothered me! It bothered me So much that I spent the better part of an hour getting it "right."
(';')

 

When I got this car the shift indicator light didn't work. When I took the console apart I could readily see that the wire was broken off the bottom of the light socket. Elsewhere in this thread I showed modifying and installing a new socket to accept an LED for this purpose.

There was still a question of how to make sure the light would be directed at the proper gear on the selector and not scattered everywhere.

I found some 1/2 inch heat shrink tubing that fit loosely over the LED, but it was sold flattened. It's cut to be a close fit under the selector but still allow free movement.






My soldering pencil carefully worked up and down the sharp creases and shrank the tubing into a more or less round shape perfect for this application.



Its position should be close enough to work. It will certainly be better than it was; our definition of success.

Be especially careful when bolting down the indicator to avoid crushing the light pipes! See the red arrow.

You can see that one of these was scarred in the past. This may explain why my light switch has always been so dim, aside from its being the farthest from the light source.

(';')

 

One of the more irritating things we discovered about this car early on is that the backup lights don't work in Reverse. They work, just not when the car is in Reverse. How handy is that!

The best fix would be a new shifter but that's not in the plans this year, and truthfully, probably not ever. The Reverse Light switch is affixed to the shifter in a manner that no adjustments in its position are possible.

The next best thing I could think of was to put a momentary push-button switch in the left ash tray, as it will never again be used for its original purpose. I didn't want a toggle that might be accidentally left on, binding drivers behind at night. I thought it shouldn't be all that hard to do all this but Murphy came calling, Again, and it got more complicated.

I couldn't find a switch I was sure would handle the current required for the backup lights, even though I replaced the 1156 incandescent bulbs with LEDs. There's nearly 50 watts between those two (I have no idea the power of incandescents but I don't think it's that high) and I didn't want to fry the cute little switch I already had and wanted to use.

So, it was time to run the circuit through a relay, which husband just happened to have a selection stashed away and he gave me one. With a few modifications it would fit in the ash tray and do what I needed it to do.

We discovered the tray itself fits Perfectly upside down under the lid. This gave a metal base to the plastic cover and still contained all the wires. It also gave a solid base for the momentary switch.

~~~~~
I should stop here and say it's probably not absolutely necessary that one has to do it this way. If you have a switch that will handle the current of the backup lights on its own, there is certainly No reason to go to all this trouble. Just mount a switch capable of the current load and be done with it.

The switch on the shifter only completes the circuit. Unless you feel the need to use a relay, that's all you need your switch to do too.
~~~~~

The wires on the shifter switch are plenty long enough to reach wires from the ashtray switch without extensions, however, if you're using a relay, the green/pink wire on the shifter switch is hot, the light green goes to the lights and ground/earth. Picture below plainly shows the tracer wire with a + marked in the spade connector and a light bulb marked on the other wire.



First I glued a slab of plastic to the bottom of the tray and drilled a hole for the switch. Then painted the top.

The tray had to be cut to allow the wires to safely exit and connect to other wires so this contraption would work. All sharp edges were rounded for electrical safety.





In order for the tray to sit as low as possible a notch had to be cut from the opposite end from the wires.



This is the completed relay assembly ready to set into the ashtray frame. That big ugly fat thing on the yellow and black wires contains a capacitor to avoid spark damage to the relay points.



Notice in the next picture how the tray sits in the astray frame (especially the red circle) and how the wires exit the tray. Also notice I've marked one spade + (green circle). This spade will be inserted into its opposite number, the green/pink wire that was originally connected to the reverse switch.



As I said above, if your switch is capable of doing the job you want it to do there is No need to go to these lengths. My switch is not capable of the load I'm putting on it.



In The Car:
All this has to be connected to the car before the window switches are reinstalled.



And a close-up of the spades.


(';')

 

Woweee, all that to light up some rather wimpy white bulbs in the rear????


And, as that switch is "press to clos", Your right hand is now occupied while backing, leaving any maneuvers to be done by your left??


No, matter, just being picky. One hand/arm is probably more than enough.


There is a way to attach an XJS reverse switch to an S@/S3 tower. Merely a large washer and a nut!!! Best tacked, but clamped works.


Or, a timed switch. My only self bought new car ever, a 53 MGTD, had such a circuit for the turn signals!!! Hmmm. so "modern" day drivers could take heed.


Oh, my "ash trays" in both cars are used for change!!! Gave up the nasty habit in 78!!


Yeah, the shift indicator lamp socket support in my car was busted. dratted plastic. A bit of SS safety wire restored it to be where it should and indicate the gear locations.


As I recall, Jaguar doesn't use a relay to light the backups. One of the few places, Jaguar didn't go relay.


Tis rewarding, when after a wire session, the things light up and intended.


I learned two ways to make a soldered splice:


1. Twist the wires together for mechanical "strength". heat the wires so as to allow the solder to saturate the splice. I often cheat and heat the solder and let it heat the splice.


2. Push the cut ends into each other. Use tiny strands of corroded wire to tie the joint at each end. Apply solder. When cool, remove the strands. At ties, I cheat and omit the strands. Luck hold things together til the solder sets.


Jokers:
1. Durn, I forgot to slip on the shrink tubing!!
2. More durn, the tubing was too close and shrunk before I slipped it over the soldered joint.


Hmm, where did I put that big can with coils of insulated wire?????
Ugh, possibly, the side "trash/junk" yard. Some of son's discards are still there. I did get rid of a dead C6 auto box to the recylce pickup guys.


There is a Fordomatic unit there, I think. Kissing cousin to the BW boxes used in our vintage Jaguars. Tough, but clunky.


Carl
Carl

 

Thank you, Carl, but they Aren't Wimpy back-up lights!! You could about land a plane with the light they put out!

I Did say it may be unnecessary to do all this, but just in case "Someone" wanted to do it, here's how. Besides, I thought all you guys could use a good laugh!

I learned what you call cheating; I get the iron good and hot, wipe it quickly on a wet rag to clean off anything that will come, put a small dab of solder on the iron and put that dab Under the intended splice, and the cold solder on the top.

Heat travels faster through liquid than through air, and the dab of solder effectively increases the contact area greatly. When it's hot enough to melt the solder on top of the splice and run down the wire, Then I know I've got enough.

I've never had one I did like that come apart.
(';')

 

Someone might find these handy sometime.
The window wires are either red or green with various tracers.










I hope this is understandable.
(';')