This day had to come with a full ground up rebuild. Unfortunately my car is now down to the bare bones ready for the sand blaster. Not a lot of visible rust but there is some bog. Thats the good news. Obviously mine got through the priming and painting process in a non-strike period.

However, It must have been stopped in the electrical section. On pulling the interior loom out the ghost of Lucas has been at it and even minor wiring work is melted. Little things like one of the C Pillar lights wiring is a ball of plastic and spade connectors. Its starting to look like Im going to need a new loom!

From what I can tell there arent any around and to be honest the quality of any second hand loom must be dubious. So Im in for making my own.

Any and all advice is welcome. LOLs are not!

 

Use good quality wire. PVC insulation is ok for inside the car but under the bonnet you want to you something like a silicone insulated wire.

Buy yourself a good crimping tool and use good quality connectors. Doing this will have the car gremlin free for the rest of its life.

 

+ heaps. I did it waaaaay back. The reliability was/is soooooo scary. The amount of spare time you will have after the work will amaze you, no gremlins, things we dream of.

I soldered nearly every joint when I did mine, but that is purely your choice.

 

Ah come on, what's the fun in that? The Prince of darkness is one of the charming quirks of owning a Jag LOL!! (Sorry couldn't resist )

Seriously though, this is a very sensible approach. As others have said, use appropriate high quality wire. I also like the idea of soldering, just remember that modern solder which is lead free, flows at a much higher temp so make sure your gun gets hot enough. You want a minimum of 700 degF, higher is better but the tip will wear out a bit faster. Give each solder plenty of time to avoid dry joints. Snap on the connector and add some dielectric grease to ward off moisture. It will be a long process but will pay off in the long run

Cheers,

Allan

 

There are some very good joiners these days. I would use the ones that Telsta (Telecom) use in the pits to join phone cable. these crimp joiners are filled with a silicone, just push the wires in crimp and your done. If they last 30++ years in a pit in the ground they will last forever inside a car.

If you can not get these then solder the connections. Use the wire splice technique this is how phone wire used to be joined, you strip each wire back about 2cm and twist them together inline (Don't forget to put the heatshrink on before you put them together) then solder, wait till the joint has cooled before putting the heatshrink over it or the tube will shrink prematurely.

 

Delete double post

 

How did you do the wire colours?

I was looking at either the bands or trying to get close colour equivalents.

 

you can use numbered bands that slide over the wire. Each wire (or group) can have a unique number. Make a legend of the wire numbers for future reference.

Grafoplast wire markers and cable markers

 

+1 on soldering whenever possible.

But, as someone has mentioned, there are also many high-grade crimp-on connectors out there. Many choices to suit a variety of applications. Takes a little effort to research and obtain them, though.

It always breaks my heart to see an otherwise nice car repaired with the absolute cheapest, lowest grade connectors/terminals that every neighborhood parts store sells.

One of the best purchases I ever made was an *entire* wiring loom from a Ser III XJ6. I paid a whopping $75 for it. Miles and miles (so to speak) of pristine wiring. I couldn't possibly have purchased that much wiring, new on spools, for less. This has allowed me to make wiring repairs on older Jags with exact matching of wire colors. Quite a slew of perfectly good connectors, too.

Cheers
DD

 

alls well in paradise; i did my wiring back around 19-20yrs, no problem with wires now!

BUTTT! what to do with the Lucas ignition switch, and the Lucas headlight switch, and the center push switches, you could change them with another type switch but wouldnt fit the dash looks.

Oh did i mention the damn steering wheel stalks,both wipers and directionals, and dip(shet) stuff.

all the good wiring in the world wont cure all of the LUCAS nightmare.

sorry to rant ,but other day just out cruising, car stops dead on the road, so me,over thinking things, pulls over , and lifts the hood , checking and wigglin things,

my car is equipped with a remote starter button in middle of consol,well long and short, the ignition switch had shut itself OFF, a slight WIGGLE and car started instantly!

Lucas stuff seems to have a mind of its own!

 

The only Lucas switches I've had especially poor luck with are the stalk type wiper/washer. Grrr!

The other stuff? <shrug> I've seen better, I've seen worse. Jaguar certainly didn't specify the highest grade stuff, that's for sure.

But, OTOH, it's hard for me to say a switch is poor quality when it worked for 15-20-25 years.

What I find inexcusable is Jaguar using so may non-sealed connectors clear up into the 80s...or maybe even 90s in some cases! I'm certain that Lucas would have been happy to provide higher grade stuff.....for a price

Cheers
DD

 

Doug you are absolutely correct!

we do expect to much out of our old junk.

 

Doug let me retract my last post!

i have a 1979 Japanese Isuzu,200K miles), all electrical works fine.

I do believe it was B/L (british leyland) that dictated what metals should be used,for electrical wire, connectors, switches,relay contacts,etc. the elements in the actual metal dictate the corrosion resistance of it.

Ford realized this problem and one of the 1st things they set about correcting was the jaguar electrical.