Otter LRC CM4647296 comes home

[Jordan Baker]

Dash is coming along. The speedometer was replaced but it needed a rebuild. I also decided to reset the odometer to match what was originally removed from the Otter. The wiring junction block was also rebuilt and plated.

[Lynn Eades]

I think Grant is bang on, that it is a voltage reducer. The resistance needs to suit the load. Macs have them for individual instruments, 12 volt to 6 volt.

[Jordan Baker]

A “few” hours were spent sorting out the original wiring harness that I removed from the vehicle. Every wire has been tagged on both ends for what is it, the size and colour and how the wire ends in either nothing, ring, spade or a flag terminal. I did find a few differences from the wiring diagram with some of the colour tracers. I ended up writing 4 sheets of hand written notes documenting each wire that now to be typed up.

I’ve also ordered all my wires in bulk amd I will hopefully have that in a few weeks.

One interesting bit that I found. The vehicle was wired for for high/low beams, however no actual switch was provided. So the headlamps have both sets of wire at the junction terminal strips and there is two sets of wire that are at the dash terminal strip. However only the high beam has power from the headlamp switch. The other was that the harness had the wiring for two brake lights when only one was fitted.

[Jordan Baker]

While waiting for the wire order to arrive I figured I may as well build what I can with what I’ve got. It’s not much but it’s a start. The original wiring was well beyond saving. The covering simply crumbles away. I was also given the chance to go over an original harness that was NOS. This proved invaluable.

[Chris Suslowicz]

If you can borrow the NOS harness again, is it worth making up a wiring board so you can get all the individual lengths correct and lace it up/add sleeving before fitting it to the vehicle?

Chris.
(I suppose it depends on how much workshop space is available.)

[Jordan Baker]

Workshop space I have. However that harness is in England in an Otter. I did some detailed drawings and pictures of it though. I was also fortunate that my original harness is pretty intact. So I’ll be making up a board with it to layout the new one. Only a few ends were bits were cut from it.

[Jordan Baker]

About 1.5hrs of work to get this inner left foot well panel removed. Hamilton Bridge used a lot of round headed slot machine screws. 80years later they can be a challenge to remove. Most had the slot completely covered in layers of paint. I found using a box cutter and slim slotted screw driver worked well for cleaning the slot. I then tried out my new Milwaukee M18 impact driver. Wow I am impressed. It has different speed settings then automatically adjusts the torque and speed once it senses the bolt or nut is backing out. I found this really helpful in keeping the slotted bit from slipping out of the screw.

I was also fortunate that the original junction blocks were still present. It should clean up quite nicely similar to the one on the dash.