I hate electrics.

Carrying on with my 1984 110 project and the wiring is awful. I hate wiring but won't pay anyone to do it so must do it myself.
It's the old style fuse box with the cylindrical type fuses. Yet a PO has had field day making it complicated.
None of the fuses in the fuse box are in the same place as the diagram. Is issue number one.
The only thing that works on the vehicle is the starter, fuel solenoid, oil pressure light, charging light and temperature gauge.
All the lights at the front worked prior to me removing the wings and now I've started wiring back up with the labels I made up to say what went where and nothing is working.

When I put the hazards on no external lights work yet the blue main beam light flashes with the warning lights but the headlight doesn't flash.
When I put the multimeter to the fuse box about 5 fuse holders are live when I attempt to flash the lights.
The PO had made a separate fuse box in the battery box for extra lights and other stuff.

I can't get the wipers to do anything, indicators do nothing but blink the little blue main beam light. The fuel gauge always shows full when it's not.

I don't even know where to start as I doubt a wiring diagram would help.
Electrics are not my forte and I get bored very quickly tracing wires and getting no where.

Anyone got any tips.

With the old type fuses, the first thing to do is remove all the fuses and use emery paper on the fuse holder contacts. Then put the fuses in one by one, check that you have battery on the vehicle side of the fuse holder and use the wiring colour chart and a test lamp to work out what is happening. You know the main beam is working, so the PO hasn't completely ballsed it up. Try the side light circuit - look for voltage at the light switch, if it's there, then the fault is in the loom. Treat any scotchlok connectors as a failure point, ditto for any old lucar connectors.

If the lights haven't been used for a while, clean the lighting switch contacts too.

If you're re wireing the fuse box you may as well replace it with a modern blade fuse system. And if you get the correct wording diagram it'll give you the correct wire colours which will give you a good starting point.

zeaphod said:

With the old type fuses, the first thing to do is remove all the fuses and use emery paper on the fuse holder contacts. Then put the fuses in one by one, check that you have battery on the vehicle side of the fuse holder and use the wiring colour chart and a test lamp to work out what is happening. You know the main beam is working, so the PO hasn't completely ballsed it up. Try the side light circuit - look for voltage at the light switch, if it's there, then the fault is in the loom. Treat any scotchlok connectors as a failure point, ditto for any old lucar connectors.

Click to expand...

The main beam doesn't work only the blue light. The vehicle had sat unused for 6 years outside and the worst rot was to the bulkhead causing a lot of moisture.

I'm thinking the wiring I've done at the front is wrong somewhere. As I've only put the lights all on the drivers side and when you indicate that way you get the main beam warning light on and flashing the same rate as the indicators but no main beam at the headlight. Side lights don't work. And when I checked with a multimeter at the lights in the wing there was very little voltage there.
The earth points are all cleaned up with new bolts securing the earths.

The PO had wired in 6 extra lights at the front. 2 spotlights that work with the main beam and then all 6 that will also work off a separate switch all fused independently of the main fusebox also with an independent relay.

The PO's wiring to the extra spots sounds as though it is wired properly. Main fused poss + coming from batt terminal to relay which is triggered by feed to high beam.Takes all heavy loads from loom as coming straight from battery.

Yes it was wired properly however when it was sat for 6 years he raided relays and fuses and all sorts of bits so there's wires everywhere.

To be honest, I would disconnect any non standard wiring - you can't know what they did. If you have the warning light for full beam at the dash, then there should be voltage on the Blue grey wire at the RH wing. (this is based on the colours in use in '85)
You could disconnect the wing wiring at the plug near the bulkhead and check that you are getting power there - best use a test lamp. Worth cleaning the switch contacts if it has sat for years too - a bit of emery paper will clean them up.

Gremlins of the type you describe - switch "A" making item "B" work, (when it should make item "A" work), are usually an indication of a dodgy earth - and the electrickery is simple finding the easiest way "home" as it were - actually, the easiest way to equilibrium...
So, your high beam indicator flashing is, IMHO, an earth fault - try cleaning them all - they will likely be grotty beyond belief....

Just another thing. If those blue scotch locks have been used to tap into a circuit, take them of and solder and heat shrink the cable. Even if you need to keep the splice, bin the scotch locks. All they do is cut some threads and let moisture to the copper wire which will start to corrode leading to bad joints.

Aaaarrrrrgggg, Scotch locks one of the worst things ever invented

Although you have cleaned the earths, add some temporary ones straight to the battery whilst sorting out your issues

Bear in mind the current wiring colour may bear no relation to the wiring diagram if the PO has spliced new wires in or replaced sections of the wiring loom. Worked on a SIIa recently where the last 6" of each wire to the instrument cluster had been replaced with random pieces of domestic cable including something that looked like speaker cable; no end of scotch locks and even a few white screw terminal blocks. The PO had previously removed the body and managed to connect the N/S indicator circuit to the O/S and vice-versa.

Allan_T said:

The PO had previously removed the body and managed to connect the N/S indicator circuit to the O/S and vice-versa.

Click to expand...

Oh blimey - that would be funny if it wasn't so dangerous...

So I've been investigating today now I have some time. Started with the fuse box cleaning everything and replacing with the correct amp fuses. Then tested there was power at each one. All were okay except one the wiper fuse. It's a white wire that supplies the fuse with the power and when testing with the multimeter the voltage drops below zero being the wire that should have 12v why is it showing negative volts?

Other odd issues and I believe they are all stemming from the fuse box as I've touched nothing else.

When I put the indicator on to indicate left everything works fine, when I indicate right I get both the green side light warning light and blue main beam warning light flashing but not the two green indicator arrows. Whereas before I used to get just the main beam.
However if I have the rear fog light switch on I don't get the side light and main beam light flashing.
It does this with both warning lights on or with right indicator but not left.

Sidelights and headlights still don't do anything but there is power before and after the fuse but very weak power at bullet connectors at the light units.

The main beam warning light comes on when I flash the headlights but the headlight doesn't flash and when I have the dipped lights on and put it on to main beam I don't get the warning light or headlight.

Well I've had some victories today.
The warning lights issue was solved a bad earth. The bolt had come loose preventing a good earth and causing the power of the indicators to be sent through everything else connected to the same earth.

Now all the front lights work. Rear lights I haven't put on yet, the wipers still don't work and haven't investigated the negative volt wire yet. But at least more works than doesn't work.