A diesel called "Baldrick"

Hello All,


My latest task was to try and work out why neither of the two diesel fuel gauges worked on Baldrick or the temperature gauge. I had previously found a rectangular box which was located in-between the accessory temperature and 2nd fuel gauge and the main instrument cluster. Wires go inside one side of the box and come out of the other side of the mystery box. Today I took the lid off and found a circuit board. Both the downstream side gauges the accessory temp and 2nd fuel gauge do not work. After trying to find what wire goes where I found a couple of bare wires laying on the parcel shelf bit so I taped the wires up. Now my main Jaeger instrument cluster fuel gauge seems to be working. :)

Okay so anyone have any ideas what the mystery box was for and has anyone come across a similar thing before?

I figure that because both gauges do not have a plastic or glass face I might as well give them the flick and replace them with something which is a known quality. Still I would like the mystery solved.:D

Kind Regards
Lionel

It might be possible to figure out what this box does if you could supply the numbers and letters off the back of the little 8-pin Integrated Circuit.
That's a bloody big power transistor mounted on the outside. I would guess it might be some form of voltage regulator set up to provide a stable filtered voltage output given a fairly unstable input, but the letters and numbers would provide the biggest clue,

Coop

Quote:

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Originally Posted by C00P

It might be possible to figure out what this box does if you could supply the numbers and letters off the back of the little 8-pin Integrated Circuit.
That's a bloody big power transistor mounted on the outside. I would guess it might be some form of voltage regulator set up to provide a stable filtered voltage output given a fairly unstable input, but the letters and numbers would provide the biggest clue,

Coop

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Hello Coop,

The numbers on the 8 pin integrated circuit are ...
M9212
LM
555CM

I just did a search and found a data sheet for the I.C. LM555CM which amongst other stuff about it being suitable for use in timers it does say the following ... These devices are also useful for astable oscillator operation and can maintain an accurately controlled free running frequency and duty cycle with only two external resistors and one capacitor. The circuits of the CA555 and CA555C may be triggered by the falling edge of the waveform signal, and the output of these circuits can source or sink up to a 200mA current or drive TTL circuits. http://www.datasheetcatalog.org/datasheets/90/53593_DS.pdf

Now I just have to go back over 20 years when I last worked with electronics and back then I could work out what all this stuff means again.

The white ceramic rectangle has 5W 01 (ohm sign) J on it.

That is about all the numbers I can provide tonight.

The green wire in the photo connects to a red wire just out of the photo
While a black and a red wire feed into the box from behind the main instrument cluster.

I have not measure input and outputs with my multimeter.

Surely this is a lot of overkill to run a steady power source to a couple of gauges? Maybe there was something else hanging off the downstream side of the box and the temperature and fuel gauge???

Kind Regards
Lionel

Possibly intermittent wipers or indicator flasher... back in the 80s there was an immobiliser design by one of the electronic mags (ETI or EA) that used a 555.

The basic idea was the immobiliser would kill the engine every few seconds and annoy the would be thief.

Basically your looking for something that will be turned on and off in a cyclic fashion.

Cheers
Ron

Yep, that's right. I remember using those IC's for various timer circuits. So flasher or intermittent wipers is the most likely, and I also remember the on-off anti-theft circuit which if memory serves correctly, was published in Electronics Australia. It could also be set up to time out after a short interval so the thief would think the car had died (which was, in effect, true).
I remember the intermittent wiper circuit had an external adjustment knob which allowed the operator to vary the time interval during operation. This box seems to lack that (although there is a variable resistor- the yellowish device with the screwdriver slot in it- usually used to set the time interval before closing the box), so I think that eliminates the wipers. Also the box would likely have been located in a relatively hidden position if it was the anti-theft device, but not necessarily.
This web page http://socrates.berkeley.edu/~phylabs/bsc/PDFFiles/LM555.pdf provides a diagram of the pin connections for your device (scroll down to second page). Your circuit appears to be fairly simple, and further down on that site there are examples of typical circuits for monostable (ie it operates once as a timer when triggered) and astable ( ie it continues to switch something on and off once triggered until another trigger turns it off- as in wipers) operations. If you sketch out the connections of your circuit and compare it with these you might get a handle on what it was doing. One things's for sure- it wasn't a power supply circuit as I suggested previously.
The other device with numbers is a one ohm power resistor- able to handle a fair amount of current (hence the "5W" which means it can dissipate 5 watts).
Another way- possibly quicker- is to see if you can trace where the wires that come off the large power transistor go. That's the big round rusty thing on the outside of the box. It will have two pins coming off it on the inside of the box (under the circuit board) that will be connected somewhere. That will almost certainly be the devices' output and if it leads to the wipers or your coil, you have your answer (intermittent wipers or anti-theft device respectively).
Hope that helps,
Regards

Coop

Hello All,

My order of 2 sets of lights from the UK arrived on Wednesday so I put new indicators and parking lights on Baldrick's front today. The ones he came with consisted of two square indicators and trailer type parking lights. So now Baldrick's front is more Land Rover like - as it should be. I also fitted a new windscreen washer unit. This must have been too much for the passenger side headlight - an original sealed beam unit - because it went from dim to deceased. Rowan has a mis-match of different lamp types too which will be sorted out soon.

Tomorrow I will fit the replacement Narva rectangular truck indicator lights on the aluminium tray. Baldrick came with a set that were very faded and partly broken. So by tomorrow afternoon I will have all the parking, indicator, brake & tail lights working. I just need to upgrade the headlights and I will be all street legal so I can then apply for an interim rego, With this I will be able to drive Baldrick to a welding shop and get the passenger side front dumb iron repaired and some other bibs and bobs done to it.

Kind Regards
Lionel

"So by tomorrow afternoon I will have all the park, indicator, brake & tail lights working."

Well so I wrote yesterday - now after a clean-up of the tools in the dark I can say that I have the rear right hand side indicator; tail light and earth sorted out.

In the process I also traced some constantly live wires from near the towbar all the way along the chassis - up through the fire wall and into the steering column wiring. The wires were probably for charging the two or so batteries that were installed in the camper. There was an almost illegible tag which said "battery manager" Also three 6 mm diameter earth wires which went the full length of the chassis as well. While I was entertained I also found some bare wires touching nasty places and some wires that just go to nowhere but were not taped up :eek:

Maybe tomorrow after work I will have all the indicators; brake/tail and reverse lights working at the rear. The front is as it should be
. :)

Kind Regards
Lionel

Hello All,

Does anyone know if there is a legal order of lights on the rear tray of a utility?

The new Narva truck trailer units I put on Baldrick has the lights in order of outside - indicator, middle light brake/tail and inside reverse light. When replacing the lamps on Rowan which has an original steel tray dating back to 1976 I noticed that the order of the lights are outside indicator middle reverse light and inside brake/tail light.

Does it matter road registration wise what order the lamps are in? I thought maybe the legal positioning of lights might have changed since 1976?

Kind Regards
Lionel

I think the main requirement is indicators on the outside, and a minimum distance above ground, and a minimum width apart with relation to the vehicle width.

Check out the Vehicle Standards Bulletin on the dept of Transport's website,

Cheers Charlie

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Originally Posted by chazza

I think the main requirement is indicators on the outside, and a minimum distance above ground, and a minimum width apart with relation to the vehicle width.

Check out the Vehicle Standards Bulletin on the dept of Transport's website,

Cheers Charlie

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Hello Charlie & Others,

On the way to work and then on the way home from work I kept a lookout for the arrangement of lights on tray back utes. All but one had the lights arranged this way … Outside - Indicator, Middle - Brake, Inside - Reverse light.

The “all but one” was the last vehicle I saw and it was only about 200 metres from home. It was a new Holden Rodeo or some other Japanese clone utility and it had Outside - Reverse, Middle - Indicator and Inside - Brake. So even if they were installed upside down or wrong side over the indicators would still have been in the middle :eek: I happened to drive past this vehicle three times - I was not home when the posty arrived so I had to go to the post office to pick-up my new rear view mirror that was missing from inside Baldrick's cab. :). Now I just need to make the bracket for it to fit as that appears to have gone too.

Kind Regards
Lionel