Robsey's Thread of Random Ramblings.

[btcctroy]

i already told you that thing is going in that van so crack on!

[Robsey]

Oh lordy lordy...

I have been doing my usual Robsey research to ensure that I wire up the dash correctly.

This means trawling through the Maestro Hayne's manual, and perusing through the wiring diagrams and schematics.

Oh my word! The whole car is on one page!!
"MG 1600 models - July 1984 to 1985"

Not a problem on a 1959 VW Beetle, but a 1980s car with loads of electronics - yikes.

Literally a mass of lines and spaghetti.



Just to add insult to injury, the diagrams are full of mistakes.

Mistake 1 - Wires change colour in random places for no apparent reason.
An example being Ignition live supply.
This can be green, white or purple!!
In the case of the dash, the wires start out white, but change to green close to the fuse box

Mistake 2 - Items not in the diagram.
I was looking for a part labelled No 54.
I searched for ages... a bit like a demented word search puzzle to no avail.
Instead I followed the wire from the instrument connector... okay black / white wire...........
Huh - that takes me to item number 49.

Mistake 3 - Another wrong item number.
I was looking for the road speed transducer.
Again the part number was wrong. Should be number 81
Following the coloured wires (black / red) - this took me to number 74.
Loud speakers.. ??
Slap bang in the centre of the bottom half of the image - but I can clearly see the four speakers all marked up with '74' on the bottom right of the diagram.

No wonder Austin Rover / MGs were plagued with issues.
Even the diagrams are wrong - lol

[Robsey]

15 minutes with a hacksaw, brought me to this...



Hopefully it will all fit nicely...

And here are the wiring diagrams.
Electronic Choke ECU for rpm and engine temperature inputs.



And the instrument cluster itself.
Power



Illumination and exterior lighting



Sensors and gauges.

[btcctroy]

see you nearly didn't go with it, because you thought you couldn't get it to work.
You make everything work, or to a fashion lol

[Robsey]

I haven't got it ALL working yet.

But.

The signs are that it will be a good fit.



---------------------------------

I may need to get something like this, along with a Corsa VSS relay and a sensor.



Or maybe get something made up with the correct number of teeth.

The typical Ford and GM standard is a reluctor ring with 29 teeth, and I am sure that I read somewhere that a chap with a Sierra ran an MG Maestro dash with a 29 tooth reluctor ring.

The bolt-on ring above would suit the inner CV joint on the gearbox end of the drive shaft.
Also somewhere nearby on the gearbox casing could be used to provide a "fixed" mount for the pick up sensor.

You will be wanting a diagram for the VSS relay no doubt.
Only 5 wires.....

[Robsey]

A few more tests tonight -

I received a new fuel tank sender, and gauge temperature sender.

Connected up the tank sender and I am quite happy.

Although both the Maestro and the VW use VDO senders, there is a minor difference in resistance range.

What this means is that at "full" sensor position, the gauge reads about 80% full.
But -
In the "empty" sensor position, the gauge reads empty and the fuel contents warning light flashes.
So we can say a minor 'woohoo'
For me the "empty" condition is much more important than the full position.

I have exactly the same situation in my Cavalier with the Astra GTE digi-dash.
And that has worked well for many years for me.

I tried wiring the temperature sensor directly to the cluster, rather than via the choke ecu.
This read massively too cool, so the jury is out, until I wire the sender is wired up as per factory layout.

Finally, I tried the speedo sender that I had in my spares box for a fair while.
It works, but I have no means of checking what rpm correlates with what displayed mph.

There is one way -
but that means using Troy's lathe to rotate the sensor spindle.
Then run the chuck at various revs per minute.
I think it has about 8 speeds.
Then noting down the various generated / indicated road speeds would give an idea of the accuracy of actual speed pulses per mile, compared to the desired values.
A nice ten minute test.

[btcctroy]

Could you use a maestro coolant temperture sensor?

[Robsey]

I could, but it is still meant to be wired via the choke ecu.

I do have an ecu, so I can get it rigged up this weekend.

[btcctroy]

I could, but it is still meant to be wired via the choke ecu.

I do have an ecu, so I can get it rigged up this weekend.

isn't that a strange way to do things

[Robsey]

What can I say?
It is Austin Rover / British Leyland.
So I do not expect anything sensible.

There is plenty of space in the rear wing to mount the little ECU.
Only six wires required, and only two of those that need to run to the front of the van for the instrument cluster.
1 - tachometer rpm signal from the coil, which doesn't really need to go to the ECU.
2 - coolant sensor output.

The two wires are already in the loom that runs between the engine bay and fuse box.

[Robsey]

I also need to sand off some ribs on the instrument cluster casing, to allow it to fit into the surround.
The limb service at work have a huge vertical belt sander, so I will use that.

The surround also needs a lot more sanding to remove ribs and other mouldings to give a clean aperture to slide the cluster into.

[Robsey]

As promised - whether you wanted it or not...

The Corsa-C vehicle speed sensor circuit.

[btcctroy]

what software do you use and don't say paint brush lol

[Robsey]

I am an I.T. dinosaur, so I use old software.

You laugh, but I still use XP based software, such as paint... but for a lot of my drawings like my Wiring diagram above, I use an old version of Visio. (Visio 2000).
It is old, but easy for me to use.

All my car databases are also XP based.
TIS2000 and EPC3.

[cavalier1990]

I am an I.T. dinosaur, so I use old software.

You laugh, but I still use XP based software, such as paint... but for a lot of my drawings like my Wiring diagram above, I use an old version of Visio. (Visio 2000).
It is old, but easy for me to use.

All my car databases are also XP based.
TIS2000 and EPC3.

Nothing wrong with using old software, as long as you don't try to mix it with new stuff or open new files with old software i.e. word (docx/Doc extension). We do have a lot of problems with legacy software in our work trying to run on newer versions of Windows, we have a web based reporting software called BOXI (Business Objects) and new IE after V9 I think plays havoc with it. guess what though main infrastructure rolled out staged auto updates to v11 (a few Years ago mind) and never told anyone, result was piles of users suddenly couldn't use it and had to all get their auto update for Internet Explorer rolled back to they could use the old version! Feckin shit show that was

What does XP say nowadays if you're online (apart from this is no longer supported), do you even use it on any online connected PCs or just on a offline terminal?

[3cav3]

I'm with Robsey on this one. XP was the last version of Windows that I felt properly happy using. From choice id go back to it in a heart beat. It's the same with vehicles, I've had a lot of issues with my Astra van recently that was eventually tracked down to the egr valve. Hence I'm now looking for a mid 90's estate fitted with an XUD to use as my everyday transport, but as of yet nothing good has surfaced, folks call it progress but I miss the good old days. Perhaps that's why I like Cavaliers so much.

[Robsey]

I have used Windows 3.1, 95, 98, XP, 7 and 10.

XP used to fail a lot in the old days but it has been quite reliable for the last few years.

I did have a Win 10 laptop, which died completely after a Microsoft update in late 2018.
Left with a non-recoverable blue screen of death.
Bye bye more than 10 years worth of car technical info, photos and much more besides.

Gary (EnvoyCDX) has offered to recover the data, but I have simply not made the effort to send the laptop to him.

And I suspect that I may have done irreparable damage trying to sort it myself using online geek guides.
Too little knowledge is a dangerous thing.

We have moved on to Win 10 and Office 365 at work, and the computers freeze or crash dozens of times each day.
Not good when dealing with NHS patient data.

They should have stopped at Win 7 in my opinion. Not perfect, but a lot more stable than 10.

As for internet - of course internet explorer and chrome will no longer support XP,

but there are other softwares that are able to run the internet on the XP laptop.
Software is "MyPal" and the search engine is "Duck duck go" or something...

Not used the internet since my great dane knocked the laptop off the arm of my chair which snapped the wifi dongle in half as it struck the floor - dongle first.

[chrisp]

Hi Robsey - I'm puzzled how you are posting to the forum if you haven't been able to use the internet for a while?

[Robsey]

I use my Samsung android phones for almost everything.
Internet, forums and taking photos.

But - they are not compatible with my XP laptop.
So for any XP based files, I have to do some jiggery pokery with the newer pc's at work and a memory stick for file transfers.

I can blag it okay...

[chrisp]

Ah yes - I see. I've been slowly moving over to using my Samsung smartphone for a lot of things, but I still find I like the big keyboard and large screen of a laptop for some things. Not sure if I've just been lucky but WIN10 seems to be working for me OK - most of the time at least. Still I might regret saying that!

[Robsey]

Minor update -
Engine coolant temperature sender looks like it is working,

Soldered six wires to the Electronic choke ECU, because the wiring diagrams say that the ECU "handles" all the engine bay sensors.





Such as coolant temperature sender, ambient air temperature sensor and also engine rpm.



But it looks like I can bypass the ECU for the rev counter. -yayy.

So my VERY scientific test was to pour about an inch of freshly boiled water into a jug, (As close to 100°c as I can get), and then submerge the metal part of the sender.



Then watch the temperature gauge rise to just below the orange warning zone.
(Apologies for the grubby lenses).



So I think that I can declare success.

Okay - Checklist time.
Coolant temperature via ECU - tick
Fuel tank contents - tick
Dash warning lights - tick.
Road Speed - ongoing.
Illumination dimmer control - ongoing.
Rev counter - not tested.

[Robsey]

And finally got the cluster to fit inside the VW binnacle.







--------------------------------
I was going to run the dash in the cavalier, as it has a blue / red speed sensor wire going spare behind the glovebox from my old dual info display plug.

And there is a green tacho wire in one of the little square connectors below the ECU.
BUT - because I am lazy, and it is cold, wet and windy outside, I could not be bothered to start removing the glove box or the kick panel - Sad but true....

Although I did connect up the battery and crank up the car.
It was nice to hear the old girl ticking over again...
Fuel gauge says empty, so I turned it all off after just a couple of minutes.

[iangsi]

I saw there's a guy on facebook that's fitted an astra GTE digi dash into a VW Carrado, cut the socket out of an old carrado dash & made up a small adaptor loom so as to make it plug & play with the VW wiring loom

[Robsey]

I have been looking at the "voice synthesis unit" as people on the VW forum thought that it would be cool for the van to give me audible warnings.



Great!! Another woman telling me about her problems.!!

After careful thought, it would be possible to bury the whole unit behind the dash - mounted off the bulkhead somewhere.

But I will need to give this a good clean - the main steel shroud and mount for voice cut-in relay.



Unless of course, I want to see the green digital clock / trip meter.

In which case it is a matter of extending 12 wires, and finding a tasteful location and surround for the display itself.



The display is attached to the main board by two 6 rigid-core ribbon cables.

[Robsey]

Hmmmm -
I get the feeling today, that someone or something does not want me to fit the Maestro dash.

I fitted a few bulbs to replace those that looked a bit worse for wear.
Just standard 286 / T5 1.2 watt bulbs.

On powering up the unit, all the gauges have crashed.
Boo hoo...
By this I mean that either some or all the gauges flicker or appear ghost-like.

I have checked the wiring. And either I get full 'test mode' illumination or bits flickering faintly.
Tried running self test to no avail.

I think it is time to put it all away and have another look, another day.