Nice pair of TR6’s…
Quick post today of white and red TR6’s…
Visited my friend Al’s shop today and could not pass up the opportunity to take this photo of his white TR6 next to bowtie6. Al’s white TR6 runs on black centered wheels that look very slick against the all white background. Nice car, don’t you think?
In the last couple of posts I’ve described the reason for taking apart the rear suspension on bowtie6. I had to send the coilovers back to the manufacturer for servicing and sure enough, after a few days they arrived back in as-new condition. This morning, I started cleaning all the hardware and springs followed by a dry-run: installing the coilovers on the rear suspension (without springs) and going through the entire range of motion of the axle using my jack. I just wanted to make sure nothing was binding or out of alignment. All checked out, so time to quit farting around and get down to business…
The Man in the brown truck delivered a box containing bowtie6‘s rear rebuilt coilovers. This stuff is like jewelry – too bad they are not in plain sight!
Needless to say I unpacked them and they are perfect. Sure, there are a few scratches from wear and tear but overall they are mechanically back to as-new condition. The rebuild price was not too bad: $99.00 + shipping.
I can’t wait to get the springs assembled back on them and then mounting them back to the rear axle. I’ll have a new post with pictures this weekend. Stay tuned! 
After nearly 25,000 miles on bowtie6 and countless number of rebounds the rear coilovers finally gave up the ghost; time for coilover repair. In order to get them apart, I had to do a partial rear suspension tear down. My cousin Jim designed all the mounts so they could be easily disassembled – “…remember, everything will eventually be replaced or serviced at one point or another”, he says; “…it doesn’t matter how nice it looks or how great it performs, if it is not easy to disassemble and put back together, it isn’t worth a damn!”. Wise man, my cousin Jim.
A good electrical ground.
How many times have we read about the need of having a good electrical ground in classic cars? Well, I’ve had my fair share of bad electrical grounds through the years and this weekend I fell victim to one.
Weekends are my time to enjoy driving bowtie6 and this past Saturday was no exception. At a red light not far from the house some dipshit was fiddling with his phone instead of paying attention to traffic. I reached down below the dash and tapped the single-pole momentary-on switch that controls the horn…
Nada. Nothing. Horn did not work. At this point I had the default Whiskey-Tango-Foxtrot expression on my face. Damn! Electrical gremlins. Fist thing that pops in my head is failure to have a good electrical ground.
And so, when I get back home I check the fuse panel under the dash that I made and controls all electrical circuits under the bonnet (click here for a more detailed post).
I checked all fuses and they all passed with no issues. Then, I pulled each one out and made sure all connections were in order. I know, the wiring is a bit busy – but this is rather hard work to do especially in the tight confines of the passenger’s side footwell. I suppose this is what “bespoke” is all about! 😉
So, next was to go through the main power box. This is located in the engine compartment (click here for more details).
As you can see, here is the main power distribution block in bowtie6. The six red-capped affairs on the bottom are circuit breakers. They feed hard voltage to each purple relay. In addition there is another fuse panel located behind the relays as well as the engine’s PCM. After careful inspection all this checked out just fine. When I flipped the switch under the dash for the horn, the “horn” relay clicked as expected. Still no horn – rats!
Which brings us to the next photo (a closeup of the featured image above):
The entire circuit governing both horns relies on the ground made by the connector to the body. As it turns out, I pulled this connector and ensured there was no rust. Sure enough, after cleaning the connection, adding a little de-electric grease, and plugging the connector back in place all worked just fine.
And there you have it, the root of all evil… The lack of a good electrical ground.