Lights, Fans & Relays (Part 1)

I know what Santa is bringing me.....a 10" electric fan and a pair of classic chrome spotlights, very decent of him!

The electric fan is not because I'm concerned about the cooling of the Herald, it's so I can remove the mechanical fan, save a few bhp and to improve the warm up from cold. Any TSSC members reading this may have seen Derek Giles excellent article in The Courier on doing this conversion. In preparation I have already had a 22mm boss fitted to the radiator, I had it re-cored while it was there also, seemed logical and it was reasonably priced. A bit of research identified that the Intermotor 50295 fan switch was a good match, as it comes on at 88° which is 6° higher that the thermostat opens.

In terms of wiring it in, Derek's article suggests adding in a manual switch and a warning light, but I'm not going to bother as long as the switch & thermostat are matched all should work fine (in theory). I can always add a manual override switch in later if I need to.

I done a Halogen conversion

on the headlights some years back, but always felt a bit disappointed with their output, so fitting a pair of classic chrome spotlights have always been something I wanted to do.

Due to the fragility of the Herald wiring, you can't just connect the spotlights up to the same circuit as the main beam without making some mods. With the help of other TSSC members on the messageboard, I finally got my head round how to add them without melting the existing wiring, so have attached a wiring diagram below for those that understand auto-electrics as badly as I do.

Adding in a relay to the existing wiring (whether you add spotlights or not) will give you brighter lights and protect the column & dash switches, so it's a useful exercise anyway. A standard 30amp 4 pin relay is all you need, some 17amp cable and some suitable connectors. If you can't find what you need at your local Halfords, then try www.autosparks.co.uk

Herald Update

As it's been 6 months since the last Herald news, I thought it about time to write a few words.

Running hot - Heralds shouldn't run hot, the cooling system is more than up for the job, so I thought it a bit odd that on my trip to St. Austell earlier in the year that the temperature gauge was 2/3 round the gauge. Turns out that the thermostat (from a well known Triumph supplier) was some obscure 96° item. A quick swap to a standard 82° thermostat and all was well.

Vibration - Still there, need to try rotating the propshaft at each flange in turn to see if it changes. If not I may get my original solid prop balanced and refitted.

Hood - The pictures below show the problem. The hood cuts the corner of the side window, meaning you have to lower slightly to open & close the door to stop it catching.

Plus it's very tight around the rear quarters.

Hours of fiddling didn't help, so I showed it to a local trimmer who believed the hood had shrunk, and to fix would need adding in more material. The cost to do this was more that the hood cost in the first place, so I'm reluctant to go this route for now.

If anyone has any suggestions, then do let me know.

New Project - Toyota MR2 Mk1 - Moves on

Unfortunately the MR2 had to go, just not enough time to get started. It was being stored outside, so it would have deteriorated had I left it any longer, so it went on Ebay and was sold to nice fella down in Plymouth.