MORE DETAILS ABOUT RE-WIRING THE VAN / BUS - 1996
Richard and I spent about five days (spread over a month or so) re-wiring the rather ancient wiring loom of a 1970's Bedford Van. All the wires were the same colour (as far as we could tell !) and so even if we had had a wiring diagram it would have been tricky to follow each cable around the vehicle. We ended up having to keep some of the original wiring but replacing any that obviosly needed it.

For the record we list here a few additional technical details that we worked out:

The tank sensor (petrol level) was a two wire device that had a resistance of 20 ohms when empty and near to 0 ohms when full. This must have gone to some bridge circuit behind the level gauge on the dash. Because the resitances of the tank sensor were quite low we needed to make sure this wiring was as good as possible - we replaced the original wiring.

The indicator bulbs all need to be of the same type as the flash rate and L - R flash ratio timing is dependant on the resistance of the bulbs. The original wiring was rather clever in that it utilised the low resitance of the main indicator bulbs to correctly drive the dash board indicator.

Other Notes:
* main superstructure appears to be of a different Van to the main body !
* Van is positive earth
* took a 'heavy' earth wire from the front to the back of the bus to maintain good Earth
* dash board 'Main' indicator lamp taken to wiring on front lights
* number plate lights taken to side lights wiring (this goes on when the side or main lights are turned on)
* front panel switch turns on back light + dash board indicator for reminder

Tools and Equipment:
Fluke Multimeter
Gas powered soldering iron
Reels of heavy cable
insulation tape and self amalgomating tape
in-line fuses



Richard if you ever read this Hello to you and Saff (and J), Good luck and get in contact !!





THE CREATIVE SCIENCE CENTRE, JPH, Summer 1996





THE CREATIVE SCIENCE CENTRE

Dr Jonathan Hare, The University of Sussex
Brighton, East Sussex. BN1 9QJ

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