1972 Ford Granada coupe continuous build/improvement.

I owed you all some pictures... Just a few mind you.

I've not yet had a second bout of investigation due to the afore mentioned problems getting the car in and out of the garage. So I bought a cheap 900kg winch to bolt to the garage floor to solve that and am now waiting for it to arrive. But even then, the next few weekends are busy...and vacation is coming up quickly where we should be going to Cyprus if the airport can get us out there (which on our national pride is really a big questionmark as it's a mess with minimal 4 hours queing). So we'll see when and how, but at least one problem less.

That could have been a fire very quickly! is it just the one earth cable? if so can you just run something temporary to test everything works? Its odd how thats gone its almost as if something elsewhere had a failed earth and it used the ECU earth?

Been quiet for a while. Been on vacation for a bit like many of us. I can say that it has done me good to be away from home for a few days having a lot less on my mind and just enjoying our accommodations, the all-inclusive drinks and food and most of all the pool, sea and sun. Fisrt time in 4 years that we were away as a family. Really great time and battery at least reasonably well charged.

Once home even though still off from work, you quickly see the difference between being home and being gone. Lots of little jobbies to do for ourselves, my daughter, my parents and my MIL etc. Also regular things like the routine of the dogs etc. meant pretty much business as usual.

This post is a bit of a combination of several days work as documented so if it reads a bit strange it's because of me combining some stuff into this one post. Throughout this post you'll see me questioning certain things. Advice would be appreciated (for instance on suitable fuse boxes, point of view on Ford's use of combined grounds and pulling them apart as seperate grounds, etc.).


First bit:

I had planned on getting on with the Granada loom damage, but I only got to that in the last two days. I took over the dining table and laid it all out and set up the laptop and some reference materials and set to work.




First I removed the last major bits of insulation from the main loom parts. Next I traced every wire from the ecu connector to their respective destination connectors or ground or power sources. Documented all that including wire Colour, length, thickness, purpose, etc. This should help rebuild and also determine what to buy new.

It's now back in the garage on the workbench to get on with the next step: trace back each connector as some of their connections go to power, ground or other connectors, bus bars etc. and I don't want to forget a single wire.




With that complete I ultimately have several more steps to go:
- redesign the power system as I'm not too happy with it currently
- order new wires and fusebox(es) and replace the lot
- lay out the new design in the car for a more custom fit to the granada (as the original loom was built by a friend without the car present I made the components fit the loom rather than the loom fit the car)
- get it all soldered
- fix the little bit of damage to the original loom
- decide whether to strip out and check the entire original loom (i've not yet found any other damaged wire or indications thereof, but you can't see what is under the tape. I'm contemplating fixin the broken bit and putting power to it all and testing each function)
- replace the engine and gearbox loom part for a known good one, requiring removal of the air intake, fuel rail and much swearing I expect.
- see if it'll run again
- wrap loom after succesfull test

I do have some questions though. Maybe you can advise:

- how best to fix the loom? I can get a new connector but not the exact correct pins. I can maybe get a close facsimile of them at substantial cost, and would need to find a suitable crimp pliers but there's no documentation available. Also, I still won't be able to buy every connector new (or if I can I don't know where or have the budget) or find the pins for them. So I'm thinking of cutting all connectors and the main ecu connector wires a few cm after the connector and splicing in new wiring. This only leaves me with a problem on that one ground pin where there's nothing to solder to, although I think a friend can supply me this pin from a spare hacked up loom. Is this type of repair acceptable enough? I've seen plenty done this way but still.
- the BOB loom is based on three main relays, but I also want to relocate some used for other parts of the car. I'd like a 5 relay box or linked bar system. A box may be harder to place after also placing a new set of fuse boxes. How have others gone about this?

- I want to redesign the power system. Currently it has 5 or 6 fuses and each fuse leads to 2 or even more (5-7) wires combined and soldererd to one larger diameter wire. I'd rather see each wire with their own connection/fuse, or use bus bars after the fuse so each wire is still fused the same but has a decent connection. Most of this is switched live after one main relay, but some of this is direct live as well. If I would wind up fusing each wire, than it would seem to be quite a lot of fuses and also how do you determine the fuse value then. Now they are all 20a, but for the combined load. Seperate wires could do with lower ratings as given 20a individually I can see this being too high and therefore negate the purpose and see the wire burning before the fuse pops worst case...


Second bit:

Well, went ahead yesterday and put in another 90 minutes of tracing wires.

I traced all ground connections and there are quite a few (I think in the current method of wiring about 6 or 7), but these do sometimes go to 2 or 5 wire junctions. I'm not sure how to recreate those. But having seen the types of fuseboxes I'd have plenty of ground connections available to do away with those junctions and just lead them to the fusebox (if need be 2 wires on one connection). Although I'm also thinking that Ford probably had good reason to bundle 5 grounds into 1 that actually went to the battery.

I also traced most of the power feeds switched and unswitched. In total there are about 25 12v feeds. Some indeed go directly to sensors, others to other connectors, the ecu or the two main connectors that connect the ecu loom to the engine and gearbox loom.

Tonight I'll try and finish the power section. Then I can move on to each connector individually, but I know I've traced many of those wires in the process so far, so I hope I will not have to much else to trace.

I'm starting to get a good idea on how I want to and should wire the power up this time. Only question is where to put the required components. I'm currently thinking one large and one small fusebox for switched/unswitched and a linked relay bar for the relays. Also contemplating relocating some relays to that central location.

In other words, it's going to come back better then ever, but it's going to take some time...


Third and final bit that gets me up to date:

I could use a little mojo boost to be honest...

I've been spending my evenings and quite some weekend time on the wiring again. I've finished tracing the ecu connections to their connectors, ground and power connections and am now working my way back from all the connectors to make sure I have accounted for each and every wire in the loom. This latter step is slow going as I want to use as much as possible the original ford connector numbers but they are not all identified in my documentation. This means tracing wiring diagrams to find the numbers. And although the ecu connector shows around 70 occupied wires of the 104 pins, when you start looking into all the connections between connectors there's quite a lot more to go through. But my understanding is ever growing, alas my resistance to getting on with this job is also ever growing. Even though I'm well on my way.

Only after completing the initial inventory I'll also have to streamline my analysis as the registration is just pretty rough. There were so many different situations that my initial setup that worked for the ecu pin registration is just lacking for the rest. So a little more work to be done there. But this should make me able to design a new power and ground distribution layout as well as determine all needed colours of wires and thicknesses to recreate the actual looms.

And I made another mojo killing mistake earlier this weekend. I pushed the car outside on the winch and had a look see if I could still make sense of all the wiring that was left in there and boy oh boy. Of course there has to be a situation where I can't possibly be sure of one wire. I have a picture of it that I just cannot reconsile with anyhing I see in the car at this time... argh... and I thought I'd taken enough precautions for just this but apparently not.

Add to that the non BOB related extra circuits that I put in for power seats, power windows, power sockets, the powered folding mirrors, bluetooth and audio and there's still a lot to dismantle and rearrange. To get things to a higher level of quality. Although I'm still somewhat in two minds over what constitutes better quality. Cutting all wires at both connector ends and splicing in new ones means two solder connections per wire but nice new flexible wire. Opposite this is my sucpision of a lot of wires that may look fine but feel somewhat rigid/stiff and may be past their best in that sense.

With every step I dread the increase in cost and the time I'll need to get it all done... I would really make the most of the warm weather before the cold sets in as my workspace is too small to work on this indoors... So I'm also feeling the pressure as well.

Alex - Good that you are back on with it - I'd suggest that forum member martin42006 is the one to ask the questions / recommendations when comes to the electrical side of things on cars - ECU's and that kind of things are bit devolved of my knowledge bank  

Two fuse boxes was the way I did my Morris wiring from scratch. Worked out well.
Managed to find some fuse boxes with built in bus-bars.
Ran one direct from the battery.
Ran the other through a 100A relay switched from the ignition.

That gave me the option to have a separate circuit/fuse for each function, which is great if you can manage it.

No idea what the parts supply situation is like where you are but www.carbuilder.com have fuse boxes with built in bus bars and a whole host of other electrical components. UK based but sure they would post to you.

Alex - From experience I would highly recommend purchasing a good quality pair of crimping pliers that crimp on all faces 



www.autosparks.co.uk/electrical-components/wiring-tools/ratchet-hexagon-crimping-tool-ast1

Don't be tempted to purchase the cheaper alternatives that just crimp across the top bottom & bottom faces which results in the terminal connection being flattened and over wide (And in many cases unsecure) 



Secondly, I would avoid using the pre insulated terminals - The insulation is compromised as the terminal is crimped resulting in it cracking and in many cases the insulation length is way too short - Using a uninsulated terminal gives a better assurance that the wire is firmly crimped & gripped - The insulation is added beforehand in the way of heat shrink tubing which is simply sleeved over the terminal connection once made and then shrunk to size - this results in much more durable terminal end with a neater / factory finish 

Thanks for that. My research so far has by now pointed me to using uninsulated crimps and heat shrink as well. In fact, it lines up 100% with Martin's advice below, right down to the types of crimps. The only thing is finding affordable sources for the materials. I've almost worked out what I need in terms of wires/colors and thicknesses. Looks like I'll be fixing 150 wires...

I usually reccomend earthing the battery direct to the chassis as the engines can be electrically "noisy" and has the potential for sensor/ecu issues.