Prelude a little further on :)

[simonprelude]

Well as some of you will know my Prelude is still my little baby, even with the cars I have and have access to.

I have owned this car for about 7 years now.

It has has some mishaps but has generally been the most reliable comfiest car I have ever owned.

Bad points.

I earned my drink driving ban whilst driving this car years ago and also ended up doing about £2000 of damage to it at the same time.
It was rebuilt with an Erebuni wide mouthed front bumper and started it's collection of odd wheels that it has had over the years.

Then in October 2004 I had an altercation with an 80+ year old who was not looking where he was going so proceeded to drive into the front of me.

I had an idea what I wanted to do with the car and the dream started there. His Insurance paid out 100% so I had £2000 to put towards the kitty. The rebuild was to involve 1 special item and that was all my requirement was. The rest was an open canvas for whoever took the job on.

Well just over a year later I received the car back and was told the part that was vital to the job the person couldn't do.
So when I trawled, begged etc for the wiring diagrams I needed, eventually I had a break through.

Several electricians scratching heads and chins and saying no later, I eventually find a guy who says it won't be easy but he can help.

Here we are :) long time to get here (another year later)

http://snap29.photobox.co.uk/090013739f930e3bf5114954ec64576e6a2f45311b731f9d9a cdfbea.jpg

http://img.photobox.co.uk/142910944ff8156071628c7c3a6e4223cc56e8493102ef09f0 fdb7b1.jpg

So just a few more jobs to do and it might have an MOT just over 2 years after it was taken off the road. Unfortunately for me the car has also been Insured for the last 2 years also :(

So be kind............

[Lankstarr]

Simon,

As said before lurve the lights - I don't know if it would fit but how about an ITR/ATR spoiler? There must be loads of them about and it would mimic the nice curves of the lights and rear end.

Soory to say that mechano isn't my favourite building material for spoilers, but I'm sure that praising the nice curves of your rear end more than make up for it :lol:

Cheers

Luke

[Martin]

hmm...nice rear end. :-)
Nice to know the story behind your Prelude too.

Cheers
Martin

[simonprelude]

http://snap23.photobox.co.uk/35688880209ea792b619c6234d679cc17971eac9d89b94fee2 78aa71.jpg

Yes it's one of those cars I would probably be best to get rid of, but after that amount of time I don't think I could bear to let it go :cry:

[britlude]

Excuse my ignorance.... custom built lights or Maserati items let in?

... and what was the lecky problem?

[simonprelude]

Maserati lights that have been fitted.

The problems were, no one wanted to touch them as they didn't know how they worked.
Maserati wanted in excess of £1k to get them to work.
Maserati wiring diagrams are like rocket horse poo.
Maserati wiring looms are unique.

When we eventually got them to work, the brake lights would not come on unless the rear lights were on. (Rectified with a diode)
The Indicators draw no current so the car thought the rear bulbs were blown and flashed at double rate. Resistors would have got very hot, so resolved by installing a couple of bulbs in the boot.
The reversing lights foul the boot when they have a bulb in them, again resolved with LED's.
The Brake light sensor thinks the brake lights have failed, not yet resolved.

[TheQuietOne]

Maserati wiring diagrams are like rocket horse poo.

God that's even rarer than rocking horse poo, they must be bloody rare!

[britlude]

i take it the maserati lights are all led setups... just need to put ballast resistors in parallel to the lamps, so the sensor circuits 'see' the correct current. at the moment, the current is below the sense threshold, so assumes the bulbs are open circuit. either use hi wattage resistors, or bulbs inside the boot like the indicators! (though bulbs will get hotter than the resistor if you pick the right one!)

effectively, you can set it up so that a bank of hi-watt resistors simulate the rear lighting, and the lights themselves 'indicate' what's powered!

had the same problem with the flasher circuit when i changed to led rear lamps on the hot-rod.. 10 ohm, 25Watt in parallel, anywhere in the bulb feed was enough to correct the flash rate...

problems..? they're not problems!! :-)

[simonprelude]

Trust you to pick me up on that.


God that's even rarer than rocking horse poo, they must be bloody rare!

[simonprelude]

The resistors we tried would have started glowing red if they got any hotter :(


(though bulbs will get hotter than the resistor if you pick the right one!)

[britlude]

you need to use hi wattage, 25 or 50 watt aluminium cased ones, not the 1/4 watt pcb ones!!! they can also be bolted to heat sinks...

...similar to ballast resistors on conventional ignition coils... still, if it's sorted now....

[simonprelude]

Not all completely sorted yet, we were looking at the ceramic resistors but I think I'll ignore the brake light problem and leave the indicators as is.

[britlude]

have you seen this type....

http://rswww.com/cgi-bin/bv/rswww/searchBrowseAction.do?Nr=avl%3auk&N=4294730711%204294624943&name=SiteStandard&forwardingPage=line&R=0158468&callingPage=/jsp/search/search.jsp&BV_SessionID=@@@@2083982314.1166548353@@@@&BV_EngineID=ccdjaddjjgmdkdhcefeceeldgkidhgi.0&cacheID=ukie


or these...

http://rswww.com/cgi-bin/bv/rswww/searchBrowseAction.do?Nr=avl%3auk&N=4294730711%204294624952&Ne=4428&forwardingPage=search&name=SiteStandard&callingPage=/jsp/search/search.jsp&BV_SessionID=@@@@2083982314.1166548353@@@@&BV_EngineID=ccdjaddjjgmdkdhcefeceeldgkidhgi.0&cacheID=ukie

being aluminium, you can polish them too!!!

[simonprelude]

Page timed out :(


have you seen this type....

http://rswww.com/cgi-bin/bv/rswww/searchBrowseAction.do?Nr=avl%3auk&N=4294730711%204294624943&name=SiteStandard&forwardingPage=line&R=0158468&callingPage=/jsp/search/search.jsp&BV_SessionID=@@@@2083982314.1166548353@@@@&BV_EngineID=ccdjaddjjgmdkdhcefeceeldgkidhgi.0&cacheID=ukie


or these...

http://rswww.com/cgi-bin/bv/rswww/searchBrowseAction.do?Nr=avl%3auk&N=4294730711%204294624952&Ne=4428&forwardingPage=search&name=SiteStandard&callingPage=/jsp/search/search.jsp&BV_SessionID=@@@@2083982314.1166548353@@@@&BV_EngineID=ccdjaddjjgmdkdhcefeceeldgkidhgi.0&cacheID=ukie

being aluminium, you can polish them too!!!

[britlude]

stupid RS web site!

goto http://rswww.com

search on 'aluminium hs50' and 'aluminium hs75', the hs100 is the same style as the 75, just bigger!!! (they are a mail order specialist!)

[Sagacitas]

I love those tail lights. Always figured Maserati were crazy to change them (I know they had to to be able to meet US laws but frankly, and I say this as an American, stuff the US laws those lights were the dogs dangly bits!)

Richard