Electrical Madness!

I've spent an interesting day chasing down a variety of electrical maladies. The fun started with hooking up the wiring to my new headlights. I'd taken all the old stuff off without labelling anything so it was always going to be fun!

I started by checking the continuity and identifying the cables with the multimeter. Everything was pretty straightforward and I soon had the dipped and full beam working. Wiring in the sidelights was interesting because they have to hook up to part of the loom that isn't attached to the bonnet. I connected it up to make sure it worked but there was a bit of a birds nest so I'll have to come up with something better in the next few days.

The indicators were a good laugh. The left hand side one worked perfectly but I spent hours 'having fun' with the right hand side! Firstly, it failed the continuity test on the multimeter. I opened it up and found out why. I'd fitted the indicator unit without putting a bulb in it!

I had a rustle about in the garage and found another bulb and fitted it. It fitted in the socket perfectly but for some reason still wouldn't light up. That reason turned out to be because the American indicator unit was designed for a twin fillament bulb and I'd fitted a single. With that sorted the damn thing still wouldn't light up! It turned out to be a dodgy joint and I eventually got it sorted with a bit of sandpaper and copper grease.

That wasn't the end of my electrical issues though. With the hazards on, I noticed one of the rear indicators wasn't flashing. Fortunatly this was another dodgy connection - it turned out to be a spade terminal that'd come adrift and was a three second job to fix.

With the hazard lights flashing beautifully on demand I set about finding out why my indicators wouldn't work in twos. Another adrift spade terminal was the cause, this time on the flasher relay. I finally had working indicators!

I finished up my electrical marathon by 'spira wrapping' the loom to keep it tidy and by sorting out a minor problem with the horn. I couldn't find anything wrong with it but after removing and refitting the horn push I was back in business. Sorted!