Wallace

[majdomo]

8 minutes ago, '76mintgrün'02 said:

Those sound like good grounds.  I just didn't see the little strap and figured I'd ask.  Mine runs over to the fender.

The body ground might be it. I'm going to pull it off and see if I can get a better spot since it worked fine before. If you have a photo handy that would be awesome, no worries if not.

[ray_]

I think the tach is grounded thru the cluster plug. I have never seen a tach misbehave as yours is. The (-) lead to the tach from the coil provides the signal of course.

 

The Bars Leaks I used to seal my HG is still holding.

 

YMMV ;-)

 

Cheers,

['76mintgrün'02]

(edit- the Glitch ate my words again)

 

Edited January 19, 2021 by '76mintgrün'02

[ray_]

6 minutes ago, '76mintgrün'02 said:

(edit- the Glitch ate my words again)

 

When did you last change your brake oil? No insulating cushions for your airbox clips? ?

[majdomo]

From @jimk:

 

Why not THINK thru what these straps are for?  Ground straps carry the same amperage as the power cables,  they have to or there wouldn't be a complete circuit.

The BIG strap - is there to carry big amps.  The big amp circuit is the cranking circuit and is attached to the block so when the cranking motor is under power the current flows in a most direct and efficient route to the battery.

The small strap carries current for house circuits - lights, gauges etc. - connect it to the chassis.

A third ground that is rarely realized is the spark circuit ground.  High voltage is created in the coil secondary windings and routed to the sparkplug where it jumps to the head by way of the plug ground electrode.  But where does it go from there?   My car came from factory with a ground strap from the head (small capscrew on the distr. housing) directly to the coil mounting bolt.  Without it the spark circuit travels off the engine thru the big ground strap then to the chasis on the small ground strap and can create spikes in instruments.  The head to coil ground gives the grounding a direct path back to the coil shell that has the secondary windings also grounded internally to the shell.

So there, that's my story and I'm sticking to it!

 

FWIW, looks like an 8GA wire from a intake stud on the head routed to the coil mount point could be helpful on the jumpy tach issue. Also, from that same thread it looks like the right mounting location for the small braided strap on a roundie is a bolt on the battery box which, of course, is missing on my car. Will have to go searching for that, later.

 

Original thread:

 

https://www.bmw2002faq.com/forums/topic/174931-dual-connection-woven-ground-strap-question/

 

But in the meantime, because ham-fisted idiot, I pulled off the ground strap from the bottom of the radiator and tried reconnecting it to the top bolt, but in the process the - wire touched the + terminal and made a little spark... and once I was done reconnecting it to the top bolt, I get absolutely nothing from the ignition...... dammit.

 

 

Edited January 19, 2021 by majdomo

['76mintgrün'02]

52 minutes ago, ray_ said:

When did you last change your brake oil? No insulating cushions for your airbox clips? ?

 

I think the clutch master is probably puking blackness up the line.  I'm due to bleed the system again this summer.  It's been a couple years now since I swapped in this clutch master.  It's leaking already.

 

16 minutes ago, majdomo said:

The head to coil ground gives the grounding a direct path back to the coil shell

 

I took Jim's advice and ran another ground, but took it out again because I did not like seeing the red wire there.  I think I might have a braided strap I could use.

 

[majdomo]

Spent about an hour goofing off with my wiring, to see why it wasn't starting up. Much jiggling and moving stuff around ended up giving me nothing...until I pulled the two wires off of the + that are bolted down to the terminal, cleaned the connectors off with some green Scotchbrite, then put them back on in the opposite order that I had them on initially, and for whatever reason THAT worked. Ugh.

 

Put another ground wire from the valve cover to the coil mount, which did nothing for my jumpy tach, which gets way worse when turning on the headlights. Tach pegged to 8k rpm with lights on, bouncing around like its possessed. Also, there's a new gremlin where the L light doesn't shut all the way off, when I know that there's oil and pressure in the engine. Most likely I need to yank the cluster and retighten the ground wire that I put in back there a while ago, but will wait on that until the weekend when I get a chance to install the new (old) choke cable that just showed up in the mail.

 

I suppose this is all par for the course with this stuff, lots of whack-a-mole troubleshooting keeps it interesting!

[ray_]

L is 'Lectric.

 

You fried the alternator diodes.

 

 

Likely...

[majdomo]

16 minutes ago, ray_ said:

L is 'Lectric.

 

You fried the alternator diodes.

 

 

Likely...

Whaaaaa??? Must have had that all backwards. Fabulous. Need to now go searching for either replacement diodes (is that a thing?) or an E21 unit.

 

Hmm.... well wonder if that that could explain my tach issue?

 

EDIT - may have failed to mention that the alternator was out, so that I could replace the bushings with some nice new IE ones. Would be awesome if that made it worse. I'll go back and check it all again...

Edited January 20, 2021 by majdomo

[ray_]

https://www.bmw2002faq.com/articles/technical-articles/history-and-reference/2002-owners-manual-r233/

[majdomo]

6 minutes ago, ray_ said:

https://www.bmw2002faq.com/articles/technical-articles/history-and-reference/2002-owners-manual-r233/

Mine didn't come with one, see... I was just pointed toward the FAQ and they turned me loose. For better or worse.  

[ray_]

7 minutes ago, majdomo said:

Mine didn't come with one, see... I was just pointed toward the FAQ and they turned me loose. For better or worse.  

Considering that is on the FAQ ^, apparently you weren't turned loose enough!

 

[majdomo]

On 1/19/2021 at 5:53 PM, ray_ said:

L is 'Lectric.

 

You fried the alternator diodes.

 

 

Likely...

^^ This. Found a local alternator and starter shop, took it in and they had me fixed up with new diodes in about a half hour. Reinstalled and we are good to go, charging and looking good. Wondering if this maybe fixes my tach issue too? I did install a second ground from the valve cover to the coil mounting point, but it was still acting weird before fixing the alternator. We’ll see. 

 

Now working on the choke cable...purchased a couple of used choke cables from another FAQ member, was able to bind the two inner cables together with an aluminum ferrule, but now need to figure out how to keep the outer cables the same distance from each other, so only the inside cable moves when pulling on the switch. Think I might have a solution, but waiting until morning to get it fixed up.

Edited January 24, 2021 by majdomo

[majdomo]

For the next person - here is how I fixed up the choke cable on my manual 38/38 so that it works with the stock choke cable. You can probably get a cheapo choke cable from the likes of Autozone or O'Reilly, and I tried that but had no luck. I also wanted to keep the interior looking stock, which was important to me. The biggest issue with the manual choke on the 38/38 is that it faces the wrong way, towards the front of the car, and it's on the wrong side of the carb, nearer the intake rather than the driver's side wheel well. 

 

First - get a second stock choke cable from a parts car or somewhere online. The stock choke cable quality is really, really good and often it's hard to beat the price. I'm sure a Bowden cable from other parts cars would work, though, as long as it's got a solid interior wire (it's like a piano wire). I read there's a Mercedes cable out there that works well, but I wasn't able to find one and thought of this before going down the rabbit hole of an unfamiliar car.

 

Second, you're going to cut the second cable to fit the choke on the carb, making sure the wire is stripped from the housing to and the housing is secured on the clamp on the stationary end of the carb towards the front of the car. Make sure it all lines up and so on. I cut the second stock cable just at the bottom of the metal bit that runs up under the dash, to make it as long as possible. I ended up needing all of it, since the more gentle curve of the longer cable makes it easier to control from the driver's seat. With the choke wide open, I exposed about 2" of the wire on the opposite end of the cable. This is the side that will connect to your stock cable.

 

I bought a couple of 1/16" aluminum ferrules (hardware store), which are usually used to secure loops in braided wire cable. In this instance, I used them to secure the two ends of the wires to each other. I know there are other ways to do this, but these were available at my local hardware store rather than ordering online. The diameter of the wires is about 1/16", though, so if you find other clamps to use, that's the size you're looking for. Making sure that the choke is pushed all the way in, I secured the two ends to each other using the anvil on a pair of Vise-Grips to smash it down twice.

 

This secures the two sides to each other, but you now need to secure the two housings to a fixed point so the wires have something to push against. In this case, I went down to the hardware store for the third time and bought some 1/4" rubber lined clamps, and a 6" x 3/4" steel mending bar, which is usually used to secure two pieces of wood together. Some flush machine screws and nuts later, and it looks like this:

 

One key is to note how the clamps are mounted - they are secured under (well, over in this shot) the bar, so that if the cable tries to yaw the clamp uses the metal bar to keep it in place. If I'd secured it on top, the only thing keeping the cable in place would be the tension of the nut and screw, which might be enough but I didn't want to have to redo my work.

 

Here's a more general view:

 

I just ran this down to pick up lunch, and the choke works great - I can feather the choke as the motor warms up, and pushing it all the way in drops the idle down to 800 once warm, which is where I set it. Sure beats pulling over and getting out of the car to click the butterflies open!

 

(For @ray_, note my painted alternator... I wish the dude hadn't done that but it works fine...)

 

I don't think this is the prettiest solution, but braining over this for a couple days this weekend was fun and hopefully it helps someone else down the road.

 

I'd also considered mounting the housing to the moving part of the choke, and mounting the wire end to the stationary bracket, basically reversed from how this is shown. This would probably work, but the stock cable is about 3" too short and this works fine. I have a third spare cable if I need one, we'll have to see how this holds up over time. 

 

 

Edited January 24, 2021 by majdomo
Apple thinks it knows how to spell better than me...

[ray_]

27 minutes ago, majdomo said:

 

 

 

 

(For @ray_, note my painted alternator... I wish the dude hadn't done that but it works fine...)

 

 

Vise-Grips!

 

Yeah. let's glop on the silver paint and charge the customer for it!