Headlamp Aim? More like where is it aiming!

Tina was MOT'd when I collected her, and I know there was an issue with the headlamp aim on the offside but assumed that it was fixed.

When I got her home, parked in front of the garage and put the lights on. Strangely the off side was high, then when I put the main beam on, what you'd normally expect is that the main beam is higher than the dip beam. On the offside, I had the main beam lower than the dip beam - something obviously wrong.

I took the sealed beam out and looked at the wiring........
Also found this handy link with the definition of the connectors on the sealed beam unit:
http://freespace.virgin.net/tommy.sandham/lampfittings.htm

I've reproduced the information here:

I had according to the diagram:
1 = Blue/red
2 = Black
3 = Blue/White

or in other words:
The dip beam wire was connected to the main beam terminal
The main beam wire was connected to the earth terminal
The earth wire was connected to the dip beam terminal

No wonder it didn't work properly! In fact I'm surprised it worked at all.

Wait 'till I have a word with the seller, a bit of teasing is in order!

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Air Horns ..... on a TR?

Tina came with musical Air Horns and a very weedy main horn. I couldn't get the air horns to work, so they had to be removed from the car and stripped down.


You can see here with the top of the air compressor removed, the slotted metal disc. It is this disc that plays the 'music'. As each slot goes past the outlet of one of the three air horns, air is delivered to that horn for the duration that it takes the slot to pass by. If we look under the disc.......


Here you can see the cogs that will turn the slotted disc. The problem with this compressor is that it was dry. So I covered the components in oil. There are also four holes round the edge for screwing the top on the compressor, but only 3 screws, one of them is an oil feed to the pump, so when it is in the car, you can take a small screw out, add oil, and put the screw back.
Now with the compressor oiled, and connected to my power station, it would only blow a single tone - that is all 3 air horns at the same time. As far as I could tell the slotted disc would be moving, but it wasn't 'playing'...so the air must be going over the  top of the slotted disc???
After a day or two at work, daydreaming in a meeting, I had one of those Eureka moments. Look at the top of the compressor and notice the red 'tag' sticking out at the 9 O'clock position. I'd always wondered what this was for, it was connected up in the car like this:


The blue wire on the left is jumpered from the live feed to the compressor. The yellow wire goes to a knob on the dashboard to put the wire to earth when pulled.
Inside the top of the compressor is an electro-magnet. When you connect the yellow wire to ground (pulling the dashboard knob) it engergises the coil and operates the magnet. This pulls the slotted metal disc to the top of the air compressor and ensures that the air does not escape, the rotating disc then plays the tune!
So that explains why she was fitted with air horns, when you're low to the ground, you need to be seen - and heard! the music is just an addition, but the triple horn blast will make sure your heard!

Here it is being bench tested:

All working again - now just need to paint them up and tidy up the wiring - I need a new relay, the original relay looks like it was used to power somthing out of Noah's Ark!!


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