S1 Rebuild(s)

[Dave Adams]

some pics of the rebuild process,

the top trailing arm bracket is broke......

the diff is sloping back a little (looking up) so that will need sorting.......

As you can see there isn't a lot of bracing in an S1 chassis, that will be sorted.

[Big Vern]

I too have a premier wiring loom but I'm not impressed TBH. Unfathomable fuse box wiring - couldn't work out what circuits were what and nothing matched the description card that came with it - no support from PWS so ended up rewiring most of it and at £150 didn't think it was good value. With the work I had to put in, in the end I could have made a better one for less than £50....

[Dave Taylor]

BV, I have fitted one in the Sierra, it came from Ade with the car. Like you say very confusing until I spoke to Premier main man who rang me back in the evening to answer my questions. Turned out the loom I had was for a BL car, he told me to split the wrapping on the loom and all would be clear there are lots of redundant wires for interior lights, door switches etc. After cutting these away it was all very easy to finish. I looked at making a loom myself, but got to 22 different colours at between £5-10 a roll just not viable when you look whats in the premier bag.

[Big Vern]

Mine didn't match anything BL,Ford nada. He was unavailable when I had got round to installing the loom and the info card he sent bore no resemblance to the loom supplied. I agree what you get in terms of the wire, connectors etc is good value but I would have expected it to be more user friendly. I had hoped not to have to spend time figuring out all the circuits thats why I bought the loom but ended up doing much of the work I'd hoped to avoid :-(  Also it was supposed to have 4 relays and only came with 2 so expecting the headlights to draw current throught tiny section wires when the donor car had big chunky wires for this didn't impress me. All in all £150 seemed a lot of money considering how much I still had to do.

[Dave Adams]

my new wiring loom cost me £20 in wires and a tenner in connectors, if you label the wire as you go, as i suggest, it is really easy and straight forward to do.

[Dave Adams]

I had thought about that but after 4 years with the first rebuild and some 20,000 miles i didn't have a single loose connection (other problems, but not any with the chock blocks) besides they could be replaced with conventional terminals. but having no problems with them i never saw the point.

[28ullkq4hau58]

adrian how much did the premier loom cost  back then  i,v been told ther very dear now ,,

[Adrian Southgate]

Mine was just over £100 as it was purchased in a batch of five through the club we got a good discount.

As there are so many rebuilds going on at present it may be worthwhile investigating the possibility of another club bulk purchase. I am informed however that they now reside in spain and may not be able to do the same service but can always write to them and ask if there is enough interest.

[Dave Adams]

Well i have finished the wiring, 10 fuses in all and 5 relays. aall i need to do is fitting the headlights after it has had its paint, oh and the rear lights to connect. almost there.....the end is in sight.

[Dave Adams]

IT STARTS......Tested the vehicle electrics with the new smaller battery, and it fired up and run. A bit loud because there is no exhaust on it. But it ran and what electrics i have fitted worked fine except the fan over ride switch works in reverse,,,,,easy to swap over

[Paul Sheridan]

Top marks that man ;-)  Great feeling when it happens like that.

[Dave Adams]

ticking off odd jobs today and thought i would refit my exhaust because i dont see the point of modifying a 4 branch to fit my car when its my intention to fit a more modern engine (1.8 endura turbo intercooled diesel or a zetec petrol)  so i thought i would bung it on........now you see thats where it all started to go wrong, my repositioned steering column looked like it would easily  clear the exhaust....looked like. so i looked at modding the exhaust......not enough room to move it, or material in my scrap pile to do the job anyway so next it was a look at moving my column. Which i really dont want to do as i spent ages getting the steering wheel parallel to the dash face.....ho-hum.

so the upshot is that i have had to move the steering column about 1+1/4".. bum bum bum.

[Dave Price]

Diesel engine, sounds like an interesting idea, loads of lazy torque.  Go for it. Torque rules in my book.