Sleepin Around, New Zealand. The Build

[KCStudly]

Very crafty solution!

[Sheddie]

Very crafty solution!

Yeah, I'm quite pleased with the outcome, and there is no weight involved either.

[dales133]

Yea that'll work! Nice thinking batman

[Sheddie]

Today I got to re-organising the chiller drawer.

A while ago I had fitted a longer drawer unit that I had, and now found that I am able to turn the chiller around sideways and have room to fit the little gas cooker, in its case, beside the it and not around the back where it was rather awkward to get at.


The light plastic case it was in was falling apart and every time I picked it up today another piece would fall off.

I thought I would have to make a wooden box for it, then remembered a couple of brief cases that I no longer used and wondered if one of them would do the trick.

I found them in the back corner of the shed and one of them was perfect for the job. It is a strong molded plastic case with rounded corners, fits the space perfectly and holds the cooker and one of the canisters. It will also be good to take in the car for making cuppers when on car club runs.


I fitted and glued polystyrene around it so things wont rattle around.

I was also left with a space behind the chiller to put in a rack to hold the spare gas canisters, instead of having them floating around in their cardboard packaging.

[dales133]

More good thing king

[KCStudly]

Nice improvements.

[Sheddie]

I called in to the post office today and yah a parcel had arrived from England for me.
I had ordered a new set of door mirrors and a voltage regulator for my '67 Humber Super Snipe a week ago and they are here already.

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We are heading off for a long weekend with the Tear Drop at the end of April, and will be towing it with the Snipe.
All going well the new regulator will sort an intermittent charging issue we have had in the Snipe for years.

[dales133]

Love those super snipes

[Sheddie]

For our next trip we decided it was time to get the Humber Super Snipe out of hibernation. The old girl hasn't been on the road for a couple of years. We took her in and got a Warrant Of Fitness a couple of weeks back, then came home and made a list of all the other jobs that needed looking at. Nothing major, but a few of them are things I have been wanting to do for quite some time. First was to run wiring to charge the TD battery as we travel.

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As with the others, I ran an 8awg wire from the battery to a 50 amp auto reset circuit breaker, then a 70 amp relay, (to shut the power off when the engine is stopped) then to the back of the car to a 50amp Anderson connector.

[Sheddie]

After testing all the other components in the Super Snipe charging system and finding they were doing what they were supposed to do, I connected the new voltage regulator that I had got from England.

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I started it up and all looked good, then it started doing it all over again. The problem it has is, the ammeter needle flicking wildly from charge to discharge. It will go half to full scale about four times a second. The car is 1967 and my dad bought it in 1970. and it has been doing this for a long time. He had it looked at years ago with little success. I kept the car after his death, in 1992, and in 2007 had the auto sparkies look at again. It was ok for about the first 100 miles, then back to its old tricks. This time I decided to sort it myself but again had hit a brick wall. So then it was ask uncle GOOGLE.
I found a site with some guys having similar problems with Rover 3500s, which use all the same components, and then Jaguar E Type owners the same. One of them had described the exact same symptoms I was having. He had replaced his alternator, regulator, field solenoid, warning light controller, and ammeter, that's it the complete system, there is nothing else to replace
Then on google I found a memo that had been sent from Rootes Group (Humber who made the Super Snipe were part of the Rootes Group) to their service agents in 1968, more or less saying that this is normal, but making a few suggestions how to improve it. All the things I had already done.

[KCStudly]

So all the jokes and jabs about dreaded English automotive electrical systems are true?

Sorry for your troubles, tho you now know you have a fully restored system, so no worries, right?

[Sheddie]

So all the jokes and jabs about dreaded English automotive electrical systems are true?

Well they don't call Joseph Lucas the "Prince of Darkness" for nothing. Although I think what confused people the most was the positive earth system, which was phased out through the 60s. Although that is an easy conversion. But then I think the Italians had the Brits trumped on electrical failures.

Sorry for your troubles, tho you now know you have a fully restored system, so no worries, right?

I'll let you know on that count when we get back after our Coromandel trip at the end if the month.

[Breytie]

Is it a Generator or Alternator fitted to that Sprite?
It sounds like you have a generator fitted. If I remember correctly from tinkering with my first car (59 Mini 1275), a generator regulator is basically 3 relays that turn on the output when the output voltage is high enough, turn excitation off when battery voltage gets too high (battery full) and cuts excitation when the output current gets too high. Big loads and flat batteries causes a lot of turning on and off that will cause Ammeter madness.

The regulators I fiddled with could be opened for servicing and adjustment and you could actually see which part was cutting out.

Try to charge the battery elsewhere before fitting and keep as many loads as possible turned off and see if that changes things.

Strongs
Andre

[dales133]

Every old pommy car i had with smiths gauges were pretty erratic but i agree with the previous post the generators cause more misbehaving than alternators *disclaimer*I don't even pretend to look like an auto electrician

[Sheddie]

Hi Breytie,
Thanks for looking in. No it's not a sprite but a Humber Super Snipe. Its about three times the size of a sprite.
It has a Lucas 10AC alternator with a 4TR external regulator. The regulator is a solid state non adjustable one.
What it is doing is that when first started and the battery is down a bit the needle sits steady on the charge side, but once the battery is charged it should sit back near zero, but instead it starts flicking up and down. Rootes recommendation was to stop this by putting a load on it such as turning on the headlights. But I have found that this only works for a short time and then goes back to flicking the ammeter and the headlights start flicking as well. They also recommended replacing the relay that switches power to the fields, which I replaced, although the old one tested ok. It's going to be interesting to see what it does with the TD battery connected and the chiller running. I will report back on this in a couple of weeks. Hopefully I will be and not