Hello Folks,
I have the Manette removed from the steering column and is on my workbench. I have successfully removed the horn mechanism from the turn signal mechanism. I am looking at a silver disc with a 50-degree pie piece missing where the turn signal shaft goes. It is held on to the rest of the mechanism with two brass posts. Those have a square section and I can turn them. There is a third post the plate is welded onto that won’t budge. Would anyone enlighten me as to the next step?
Electronics repair places sell de-soldering tools, or you can get the solder to wick up onto a piece of stranded wire.
Soldering makes good connections, and it appears they never expected that anyone would want to take this thing apart.
Manette sounds like it was derived from the Latin word manual, operated by your hand, like pedal is operated by your foot, so maybe it was a brand marketing name.
BTW where the wires exit the short tube and enter the long tube, there is a sharp edge on the inner tube where they rub on it when pulling the wheel in and out. I would deburr that edge.
On my 120 that place was rubbed through and grounding out, so whenever I signaled a left turn it would blow the fuse.
Your veritable fount of knowledge never ceases to impress me. I always wondered if there was some way that the electrical connections for the signal wires could be exposed at the top end of the manette, now I know. Thank you.
Hi all,
Having de soldered the four nuts to replace the wiring to the horn and turn indicators, two of the bolts to which the nuts were attached have disappeared down their holes and fallen out through a slot at the rear. I need to get those bolts back in their holes from behind to fit the new wire eyelets.
It isn’t obvious how to do this.
Does anyone have a description or better still pictures of the next step of how to dismantle the rear to reinstate the bolts?
Scroll up to my pictures above. There is another long screw across from the soldered terminals. Remove that. Now of the five soldered nuts, numbers 1 and 5 are long studs through to the other side and hold the two halves of the Bakelite together. One grounds the outer brass ring and the other is the purple wire. Remove those two nuts and it comes apart.
So helpful, many thanks.
I was terrified that opening it up the wrong way would result in springs flying off into the distance, never to be reinstalled in their rightful place.
Two nuts removed as directed and despite proceeding with extra caution not completely snag free, but could have been worse!
If you by any chance have another view of the “resent with arrow” photo of yours to show which way round you found the burred ends of the long brass contacts I would really appreciate seeing it. These did fall out before I had a chance to view and photo.
They work either way, but there was obviously a reason for pointing them in one direction.
There is one logical way but logic sometimes doesn’t come in to these jobs.
Lucky I didn’t put it back together yet.
Those springy brass dogs are the wheel return cancel mechanism.
A cam in the center pushes out one of those dogs.
The curved rod with springs is the lever return.
Thanks again.
I’ve been pondering how to retain the three bolts that the wire ring ends attach to when refitting, because any pressure by the nuts will simply push the bolts back down the hole, in the same way that they fell out on dismantling. This is the plan:-
Hold the head of the bolts in place with Locktite, not a permanent adhesive, and use self locking nuts (not 6BA - next larger size tbn) to obviate the need to hold them down with solder.
The screws are hex heads and fit into hex holes. I suspect the factory assembler simply turned the lever to each side as they assembled and soldered the nut on that side. The lever contact parts would hold the screw in place while they were putting the wire terminal and nut on. Or they did it before assembling the front and back halves together.
Job done. A few observations for the next lamb to the slaughter.
Rewiring the manette is a fiddly job. So fiddly that it ranks at the top of the list of fiddly jobs on a XK120 restoration.
I would suggest that folk familiarise themselves completely with how the contacts work before commencing. If they aren’t sure of how it works or are short of their own time or have a tremor, even if they know they could do the job themselves, they hand this work to an auto electrician who has done it before!
As above, there are five contacts.
Replacing the horn connection (brown) and the horn ring contact is easy as fixed threads are used.
It is the three threads to the flashers which are problematic. One: power in, green. Two: supply to left flasher, green blue. Three: supply to right flasher, green yellow.
As Rob says, there are hex head bolts but they do fall out of their hex recesses and the lever can only hold one at a time. The hex heads make the electrical connection when the lever is thrust across. It is worthwhile using a mild adhesive to hold them in position whilst offering up the ring terminals.
It is definitely worth performing simple electrical continuity tests before putting everything back together because I found that my right flasher was not making contact when the lever travelled across. On inspection there was a tiny pit on the central contact (the piece that moves from side to side and forms a bridge between the central power lead (green)) and the left and right hex head connections.
Further care is required when refitting everything together on the steering column.
Make sure the sequence is correct. It is very disheartening to have put everything together only to have to take it all apart because something in the sequence was left out. Note there are TWO large washers {C3366 Parts catalogue text page 41a) and one small washer on the telescopic dust cover. First large washer goes over the outer steering column pointing downwards, then the small washer pointing upwards over the telescopic dust cover, then the telescopic cover itself (small end lowermost), then the second large washer pointing downwards over the dust cover. The special locking nut is next. Don’t forget the circlip that prevents the steering wheel being pulled out.
There could be a problem lining up the steering column control tubes.
If the upper part wont engage its dimples with the slit in the lower half (coming up from the steering box) as per instructions in the Service Manual, it may be necessary to also loosen the “bracket, clip, on end plate” at the lower end of the steering box and gently rotating this too to find the sweet point where the two ends mate. The steering box oil will drain out if this is required so a new gasket and reseal will be required.
There is only one place where the punch marks in the upper part of the control tube line up with the slit in the lower part; if the lower end is not perfectly in the centre of the steering column it is tricky getting one part to sleeve over the other.
Although this is entered under the heading “Later” manette it does apply to “early” XK 120, to which my test applies.
(problem with my one drive files so will upload a photo or two at a later date)
Simon
I am rebuilding one good pointy mannete from two that are in pieces, one is good for parts only, as some of the bakelite is broken, and not all parts present
My question relates to thread size of a few fasteners
Your pic shows the long brass nuts which I measure to be 1/8" across. I can probably get around that if they are not
What I lack is 3 nuts to retain the plastic horn push button to the assembly, and I cannot substitute anything else as they are integral with the brass plate, as shown
The measured diameter is 9/64"
I will ring the specialist fastener supplier tommorow
Would you happen to know the thread size of the pictured items/s, be it Whitworth or Imperial ?
If I cannot obtain the correct sized nut, I suspect I can use a near sized nyloc, and hopefully self-tap, if not I can buy a 9/64" tap
I also found one of my missing complete manette assemblies, just wan to find the other, all have the indicator arm. I will test them for correct indicator and horn operation.
This guide has been excellent to dismantle them
I have had 2 broken by careless individuals, including one time I had a car targetted by an expert Jag thief, you could tell he was cause of the parts that got knicked. It was in the builders open shed while some work got done on my shed.
I had a suspect, one of his employees. I am certain he was a mean and cunning criminal type. The starter motor almost got pinched off our crane as well, but you couldnt prove it
Given the fact that this is a Lucas part, in combination with the 9/64" diameter you measured, this is most likely 4BA thread with a diameter 0.142" and 38.5 TPI.
You can still find 4BA available from various UK suppliers; don’t know about Australia.
But there are also many other (old) Lucas parts that use these 4BA nuts: just have a look what you have there… I know you have a lot of parts
The Jaguar XK 120 (as an example) uses (at least) 18 pcs BA.4 nuts coded AN.104/L. This number doesn’t include what Lucas uses for their parts. Some examples: the nuts for the Headlamp Spear studs and the electrical connections of various instruments use 4BA (or BA.4 as Jaguar lists them).
Have a good hunt…… .
