Griffith wiring/battery/passenger footwell

[kabaman]

All, I'm looking for advice regarding the mess that resides in my passenger footwell. I have a battery box with no lid, I have a motor unit for controling coolant flow that is hanging from the pipes and Ihave an ECU and relays just hanging around on top of everything.

I'm trying to come up with a neat plan maybe using some acrylic sheet to mount this stuff to. Has anyone already tried this and come up with a neat plan? Did TVR havea neat plan and just various bits of mounting have been removed on my car? If anyone has any pics of a neat footwell and any brackets in this area would they please send me a pic so that I have something to copy.

Lastly, on the motor controling coolant flow, just behind the motor there's a metal pipe that allows the flow and return to merge, is this correct? Also the wires have come off of the motor, does anyone havea pic of the correct orientation of the wires on the motor?

I'd like to sort this mess out once and for all - any advice and pictures would be very welcome.

Cheers, Neil

[Barreti]

kabaman said:

All, I'm looking for advice regarding the mess that resides in my passenger footwell. I have a battery box with no lid, I have a motor unit for controling coolant flow that is hanging from the pipes and Ihave an ECU and relays just hanging around on top of everything.

Yep, sounds about right.

kabaman said:

I'm trying to come up with a neat plan maybe using some acrylic sheet to mount this stuff to. Has anyone already tried this and come up with a neat plan? Did TVR havea neat plan and just various bits of mounting have been removed on my car? If anyone has any pics of a neat footwell and any brackets in this area would they please send me a pic so that I have something to copy.

When you do sort this out will you photograph it, post it up here and send me a copy of the pictures please. And good luck

kabaman said:

Lastly, on the motor controling coolant flow, just behind the motor there's a metal pipe that allows the flow and return to merge, is this correct? Also the wires have come off of the motor, does anyone havea pic of the correct orientation of the wires on the motor?

I'd like to sort this mess out once and for all - any advice and pictures would be very welcome.

Cheers, Neil

This is a photo of the wiring for the heater motor

[kabaman]

I can send pics - I couldn't post any of the current mess becasue I don;t have a way of hosting them and hence dropping a link in to this text. But I could easily email - should I ever get the job done. I think I might do something quick now - and then do a better job over the winter - I've just got the car - I'd kind of like to use it a bit ;-)

[LordGrover]

This is a Griffith 'II', not the 1965 'original' in your profile?

[kabaman]

Well spotted - Griff 1 is a long term plan. I bought this modern Griff because I hadn't had a decent car to run around in for ages. I sold my 1600M which I'd had for 20 years earlier this year. Anyway - the plan with this new car is to make it reliable so that I can have some fun until the Griff 200 is on the road. Maybe I should update my profile.

With respect to the old car: There are a few pics of the car when I first imported it @ www.kabaman.com Since these were taken I've started a build on a new chassis. I've rebuilt the HiPo 289 plus I've fitted a short case T5, new prop. I've replaced the ali pumpkin diff with a Salisbury LSD and copied the Griff 400 fitting. I've made SS headers of a new design and I'm slowly working on the exhaust system in SS. There's a lot of work to go! When I get around to sorting out the kabaman website and can host stuff I'll give a detailed write up - but right now - I just don't have time.

Cheers, Neil

Edited by kabaman on Wednesday 13th August 21:47

[kabaman]

Thanks for the pic Barreti, my motor is different unfortunately :-(

[Barreti]

I'll have a poke about in the footwell tonight and check thats the right photo.
If you can get a shot of yours it might help.

If you dont want to post a pic up here (or haven't yet mastered the black art of posting pics up here) email me what you have to
ianbarrett1ATbtconnectDOTcom

Obviously replacing AT with @ and DOT with .

Ian

[kabaman]

Cheers, I'll email pics, if you have any of the general area that would be useful. Thanks, Neil

[RichB]

kabaman said:

I can send pics - I couldn't post any of the current mess becasue I don;t have a way of hosting them and hence dropping a link in to this text.

Just stick them in Photobucket and put [i] around the link. In fact photobucket has a place you can copy the link togther with teh square brackets in place! Dead easy...

[Ballistic Banana]

Happy to host any Griffith based pictures Neil for you in the Griffith Pages Gallery

Rally envious you have an Griffith I....wanna sell it

BB

[kabaman]

I'll distribute some pics of the Griff 200 then maybe you won't be so jealous ;-) It's really a box of parts. It was taken off the road in 1978 for a rebuild that never got finished - that's how I bought it. I imported from www.wirewheel.com. It's done less than 10,000 miles but there's so much work, with two kids and a busy job - there's no way it will be on the road soon :-( although I am trying.

[seabrookd]

My griff is exactly the same. It seems to me that the only thing that stops the loose ecu unit touching the live battery terminal is a thin fabric flap that covers the top of the battery.

Also I have to move the ecu assembly every time i want to trickle charge the battery. Is there some kind of kit I can buy to let me charge the battery without disturbing the ecu?

[Del 203]

seabrookd said:

Also I have to move the ecu assembly every time i want to trickle charge the battery. Is there some kind of kit I can buy to let me charge the battery without disturbing the ecu?

Do you have a cigarette lighter ?


Or just hard wire a connection in

[< FORZA WEST]

there are several chargers out there which are good...

The one I fit is from Bentley (crewe)...in the kit is a piece of wiring that you fabricate in and attatch to the battery and the other end is a plug which is fitted to either the under side of dash or somewhere easy to get too.It is a very neat and tidy looking connection point and no visable wires etc and also means no fannying around.

The conditioner as you would expect is one of the best as its used by bentley and Rolls of old.

[seabrookd]

yes, I thought about just fitting a socket on the end of the wire from my conditioner which would just fit into the cigarette lighter socket , and as far as i can see that would work fine, but am reluctant to do this in case there is something I haven't thought of.

Does anyone else use the cigarette lighter socket to charge the battery?

[RichB]

seabrookd said:

Does anyone else use the cigarette lighter socket to charge the battery?

Yes and it's perfect. You want to use an Accumate - about £30 from eBay, they have a connector in the lead so you can clip a cigarette plug on for one car or a set of croc-clips for another, no wiring, soldering or anything it's perfect. I use one Accumate alternating between the Griff and the Aston.

p.s. to the other question, there should be a piece of rubber glued inside the flap of carpet as added protection.

[< FORZA WEST]

You should be fine with that as long as its a conditioner as oposed to a full charger.

[seabrookd]

Thanks all for your info, especially FORZA WEST.

Make sure it's a conditioner not a charger. That's the thing I haven't thought of!

And Richb, yes i've got that bit of rubber somewhere , its come unglued

Thanks!

Edited by seabrookd on Saturday 6th September 10:22

[Rocket Pepper]

I use the cig lighter for charging with an Optimate III battery tender.


My battery is protected by a flat fibreglass panel which is held in place vertically by two screws at both bottom corners. The flat panel has Positive and Ground terminals glassed into it at the top corners. The battery cables from the battery are each about a foot long, where they bolt on to one side of the panel. On the face side of the panel the Positive and Ground cables are attached, from where they can run off to where ever they do. At this point I also have a short run of extra battery cable attached to the terminals on the panel face, of which have the Anderson plug on the opposite end.

When the panel is in place it is covered by another carpeted panel, which hides the ECU, fuse block, and wiring harness, and my Anderson edition. Then the footwell carpet folds over the carpeted panel to make a tidy job of it. Apart from the Anderson facility I added, I'd say what is in my Griff is how it left Bristol Ave. Hope this helps.

Edited by Rocket Pepper on Saturday 6th September 12:21

[RichB]

Rocket Pepper said:

... I'd say what is in my Griff is how it left Bristol Ave. Hope this helps.

They tended to leave the factory with various types of home made fibreglass boxes, some have lids some don't, what's common to all Griff's is the carpet flap with a bit of rubber sheet glued inside and the ECU and wiring harness generally stuffed up inside and on top of the battery. That's how they all were.

Regards the Accumate / Optimate they are both good and from the same manufacturer, there's a description of the differences on their web site, I think the Accumate handles slightly bigger batteries but not sure, I've got 3 of both types and they keep my cars in batteries tip-top condition.

The cigarette lighter is permanantly live so ideal for maintaining the battery.

e.g. http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/Accumate-motorcycle-battery-...