JOY & DESPAIR

[ayr41]

The emotions of owning a Delorean, took 510 for it's MOT, passed but gave me a advisory on no rear fog light, but pleased it had passed then on the way home started to misfire badly, managed to just about limp home, had a good idea what the fault was a cable had come out from under one of the relays, what a pig to get the relay block out and insert the cable properly, but fixed now thank goodness.

[dmc4087]

No fog light is a straight fail here.

[Chris Williams]

Odd how MOT testers differ, I had a handbrake cable attached with a cable tie for years and never got pulled up on it! Though I would have thought having no fog light would have been a streightforward fail, but they let it go so thats great. In this link you will find a modification from MartinG regarding incorporating fog lights into your existing rear lights, it's probably what most of us have done: http://www.deloreans.co.uk/downloads/index.html

Chris

[Manxmann]

Whats a foglight? then again whats an MOT?

From experience I _wouldn't_ recommend making that mod to your rear light boards. I ended up having to replace mine as the damage caused during the previously made mod was that great. I also wasn't keen on piggy backing onto the LAMBA light/counter as a means of letting you know when they where switched on.

[stunned_monkey]

The only "damage" caused in that mod is to sever the connection that was originally designed to be severed in order to hook up the inner lights as foglights (the little piece with four closely drilled holes). The inner brake lights on the DeLorean are actually foglights. There's a spare pin on the connector to hook them up but unfortunately due to the non-availability of these connectors we're a bit limited in what we can do, so I solder directly to the board. Nigel Mills' original euro prototype actually had this pin present so I was able to hook his up as originally designed.

The rule book says there must be a telltale in the cockpit and seeing as there's a telltale that is only used once in a blue moon, why not press it into service? Rich H has actually changed his to read "Fog".

There are loads of cars out there with this mod, I honestly can't see what the problem is. It sticks to the rules but uses what the car already has. I even put together a kit and sent it out to DMC Houston together with headlights some years back for a car they were selling to someone in the UK who wanted it MOT-ready.

[Guinney1971]

agreed Martin, my car has never failed a UK MOT with the fog light mod that you did on my car in 2003.

The only difference on my car, is that my new fog light switch has a red light on it, so I dont need to
use my 'lambda light' as a fog tell tale.

[Manxmann]

I stand by my comment given that my car almost failed the import test due to non functioning 'fog lights', the only saving grace being when the tester realised a car of her vintage simply doesn't need them, A a real testament to the reliability of this mod that they chose to fail on test day as I stood talking to a crowd of examiners standing around the car, embarrassed and annoyed simply doesn't do it justice

After stripping the rear to trace the cause of the problem it became clear that the board had de-laminated and cracked right at the point where the wires had been 'attached', experimenting later showed it takes very little 'peeling' force to damage the tracks on the boards regardless of the care taken to attach the wire. It also didn't help that someone had done a hatchet job cutting off one of the board connectors and badly soldering the loom wires directly to the edge connector of the board, all told to repair properly took a replacement rear light loom and two new rear light boards.

My comment on the Lamba graft comes from the damage done by the scotch lock breaking all but the last few strands of the circuit wire onto which it was parasitically attached. Having spent a great deal of time removing and repairing far too many of these the damage they cause really cannot be understated and their use should be avoided at all costs. Fingers crossed my car is now free of this menace.

Far better in my opinion to add a new circuit which really only consists of a relay/a couple of fuses/lamp and some wiring. The big advantage is surely knowing exactly where to look for faults if any issues arise as opposed to compromising existing systems never intended for the purpose. I appreciate that other cars have had this mod done and whilst I obviously cannot comment on them what I would say is that just because you can do something doesn't necessarily mean you should.

Your mileage may vary obviously but I felt it important to give a real life report on this mod in relation to my car.

[stunned_monkey]

When the condition of the rear boards decays to the point where the connector no longer works, you can a) buy new boards and a rear loom or b) solder to the boards. While I am in the camp of "do it properly or not at all" in most cases, I see no mechanical or electrical problem with soldering to bypass a buggered connector, and if the (then) owner has no problem with it...

Certainly I no longer use scotch-locks anywhere, heven't done in years. On the lambda connection, I leave the lambda box unplugged and connect directly to the single pin on the plug. This way the foglight is not back-fed should the lambda box ever hit "100". FWIW DMC used scotch locks in a couple of places.

I've never heard of a problem with one of the fogs I've done, except where the car subsequently changed hands and the new owner didn't know why their lambda light was on...

As ever, I can't help with problems I don't know about.

[Manxmann]

I'm merely reporting on the condition of my car when I bought her and providing my personal recommendation against this mod based on same. Everyone is free to do as they please however its important to provide balance by letting people know when things don't 'work'.

I don't believe I attributed blame to anyone other than a PO.

[stunned_monkey]

Fair enough you're reporting a failure on your car after the mod had been present for many years but the problems experienced are specific to your car and not specific to the modification. Electrically this modification is perfectly sound.

[Manxmann]

In your personal opinion, in mine less so as I believe I have clearly stated.

[Chris Williams]

Anyway does anyone know the rules on when foglights need to be fitted from, and why 510 passed without one? is there a specific date in 1981 when they need to be fitted from? If so no problem if it does not need one at all.

Chris

[Darren C]

The answers here

viewtopic.php?f=14&t=4212

[Guinney1971]

interesting reading there Darren - FWIW, my first two cars were Austin Mini's the first a
Mini 850 model of 1978 ('S' reg) vintage that had neither rear fog lights or reversing lights - my dad
and I retro-fitted them when I bought the car for the princely sum of £250 in 1989.

My second Mini, was a 1979 'T' reg Mini 1000, and that had the rear lights including fog
lights and reversing lights - obviously this was a 1980 model year car and its rear lights
were upgraded to take into account the law that would have been coming into force in
1980.

[Rissy]

stunned_monkey Wrote:When the condition of the rear boards decays to the point where the connector no longer works, you can a) buy new boards and a rear loom or b) solder to the boards. While I am in the camp of "do it properly or not at all" in most cases, I see no mechanical or electrical problem with soldering to bypass a buggered connector, and if the (then) owner has no problem with it...

Certainly I no longer use scotch-locks anywhere, heven't done in years. On the lambda connection, I leave the lambda box unplugged and connect directly to the single pin on the plug. This way the foglight is not back-fed should the lambda box ever hit "100". FWIW DMC used scotch locks in a couple of places.

I've never heard of a problem with one of the fogs I've done, except where the car subsequently changed hands and the new owner didn't know why their lambda light was on...

As ever, I can't help with problems I don't know about.

So funny this was just mentioned on here. Yesterday, on the way home from yours Martin, LEX hit 29,967 miles (now gone passed the 30,000 miles mark since eventually getting back to Rugby last night around 10:30pm) and my LAMBDA light came on. I'll admit, I was confused, but not overly worried. Wasn't until I got home, lying in bed, and thought "the LAMBDA box must still be connected, otherwise there would be no other way of the dash light coming on (other than by me pressing my centre console FOG light switch). There was no ill effect that I could see from this coming on. Fog lights still worked as normal, and no electrical issues as a result (that i'm aware of). I'm guessing you must have paralleled the LAMBDA counter switch with the console fog light switch....

Next time i'm out playing with the car, I'll try to pull the box out and try to reset the counter back to "000" again...