Zoona's car (Affectionately known as Baby Car)

Couldn't get the dash working at all. Started by tracing the main power to it, and that seemed to be fine

Then realised that the track be plastic backing has been scratched and broken. It has been kicking around half attached in the car for so long, i'm surprised it is not worse.

Tried to solder it, but melted a large chunk of the plastic. Just about managed to bridge it, but need to look for a better solution

I'll take a look this morning, thanks

For my old t3 bus you could buy replacement kits that were all nicely wired up. I have looked, but can't find a similar product for 5s. Does it need to get a bit older before somebody makes one?...

Like this: www.vanagon.org/products/instrument-cluster-foil-repair-kit

the vw world has these fixes already in place as they (t25's for example) are 30-40 years old and as they were built to a budget / not expected to continue service this long its whats needed to keep working.

does anyone remember the 1980's vw tv advert with the tagline



for the record, 1990's vw clusters have been failing for at least the last 10 years, pcb & 'chip' burnouts....


I'd say that theres a majority of Mx5's that have never had their clusters removed so have not suffered from the 'sawing' action of plug or bulb removal that is the main cause of failure.

that said, I guess it won't be long before it starts to be more common problem

Rich.

Have been running it to do the first steps of running in

Sounds dreadful and I think it's going to blow up all the time


I also made a quick panel for the gauges as I did have them shoved into some cardboard, which didn't look very good .


Hopefully getting shipped in the next couple of weeks.

Something bad happened... well, two bad things as it turns out.

It was all fine, until I decided to show my landlord the car running - he is a petrol head and has been laughing at my slow progress.

Went to start it and got nothing, apart from a fuel pump running constantly.


Spent ages looking at voltages and earths, and was very confused. Then Zed very kindly reminded me that there was a fuse that you are supposed to take out. "No, couldn’t possibly be that. It has been working and I'm not a complete idiot."
Turns out I am.

Problem number one:
I had (at some point) put the ST SIGN fuse back into the fuse box. I think I did this when I put the new loom in as I was checking it all over "Hmm, there seems to be a fuse missing... I shoudl put one in".
So it ran for a while, but eventually blew a transistor:


With some help from Nix on mx5nutz (putting a Tailgate McNoIndicate straight 6 in an mx5 - worth a look) I got the right parts, and replaced them.

Problem number two:
Starter motor ate itself. Nope, don’t know. But it did a number on itself:



The fact these thing happened at the same time, really confused and distracted me...

So, thanks to those who helped.


Currently, I have replaced the transistor and a diode that also failed, and the ecu seems to be behaving. I do have a clicking fuel pump relay with key in pos 1. So either I have done more damage to the ecu or I still have an earth problem.
The ecu seems to be happy when I connect a pc to it.
I have a new starter on order. So as soon as I get and fit that, I can try it...

Ah, hello. I didn't realise!

I have been away from nutz since they last Canoeed things up, and then away from here when I didn't have time to do anything to the car 
Hoping to be back a bit more now... Or at least when the car garage the the US and I can find some tracks.

Good, isn't it?