Wiring question

[smashbeat]

Hi all,
I'm having some electrical issues with my late series 4 (what a surprise!).
I recently bought the car so I'm trying to get going.
The engine runs. I have parking lights.
No headlights, even if the waring bulb lights up.
No ignition and turn warning lights.
No Rev counter, ammeter moves a bit, no other lights. Wipers work, blower doesn't.
When I say "no" I mean not working, but the device is actually present.

The car seems to be still positive grounded.

I've found two black wires hanging in the engine bay, near the front. One each side. Bundled with the wires going to the lamps. Where to connect them? See pictures.
Also the auxiliary side of the fuse box is not populated on one side. Is this OK, right?

Any hint of suggestions appreciated!
Thanks

 

[Gordon Holsinger]

Hi all,
I'm having some electrical issues with my late series 4 (what a surprise!).
I recently bought the car so I'm trying to get going.
The engine runs. I have parking lights.
No headlights, even if the waring bulb lights up.
No ignition and turn warning lights.
No Rev counter, ammeter moves a bit, no other lights. Wipers work, blower doesn't.
When I say "no" I mean not working, but the device is actually present.

The car seems to be still positive grounded.

I've found two black wires hanging in the engine bay, near the front. One each side. Bundled with the wires going to the lamps. Where to connect them? See pictures.
Also the auxiliary side of the fuse box is not populated on one side. Is this OK, right?

Any hint of suggestions appreciated!
Thanks

The black wire that you are holding is the ground for the lamps

 

[Gordon Holsinger]

The black wire that you are holding is the ground for the lamps

You are missing the clips for the ground that go under the hood buffer. Run a jumper to the chassis. There is a ground for the headlamps on each side. Then your lamps will work.

 

[Gordon Holsinger]

You are missing the clips for the ground that go under the hood buffer. Run a jumper to the chassis. There is a ground for the headlamps on each side. Then your lamps will work.

I am pulling out a shop manual rite now for your fuse block

 

[hartmandm]

Let's start with an easy item. The black wire in your picture is the ground wire for the headlamp. It normally connects to a connector on the underside of the hood rubber bumper.



Your picture of the fuse box looks like a stock setup for a non-GT car.

Ignition light, turn signals - check the bulbs are good and check grounds on the bulb sockets.

Gauges should have lights that come on with the headlamps. Check bulbs and grounds on those. The gauge lights obtain ground via the gauge's metal housing. There is a daisy chain of black ground wires connecting to each gauge mounting bracket.

Mike

 

[Gordon Holsinger]

I am pulling out a shop manual rite now for your fuse block

There are 4 terminals on the fuse block.
Terminal 4 has 3 three green wires. Terminal 2 has 2 white wires
Terminal 1 has 3 brown wires
Terminal 1 has 0 wires
One green wire goes to the wiper motor green to green.
One green wire goes to the instrument voltage regulator under the left side. It is a little thing!
one green wire goes to the horns.
One of the white wires goes to terminal 2 on the ignition switch
The brown wires go to the solenoid and alternator circuit.

I am sorry that I do not have my generator cars manual at hand what I have sent you is common to Series IV and V. The under dash voltage regulator fails a lot of times so if the instruments don’t work that is a usual problem.

 

[Tom H]

“Seems to be still positive ground”. Very easy to confirm for sure. The positive terminal of the battery will be connected to the chassis- most likely in the battery box, as original.

Do have a wiring diagram? Available on this site. From your photos the wiring seems to be original.

 

[hartmandm]

The headlamp ground connector on the rubber bumper post should look like this. You can see I made a repair on the one side of the connector.



Mike

 

[smashbeat]

Thanks for all your replies.
I put that wire to the chassis and headlights are working. I will fabricate a repair and buy those grommets for the hood.

Ok for the fuse box.

As for the turn switch my car did not have the indicator switch (it was cannibalized to build a tiger from what I was told). I just got a proper used indicator switch one and connected the 4 wires following the wiring diagram. I will double check.
Bulbs are good. I will check ground to socket.

Ordering some bulbs for the instruments and warning lights.

The car came without battery, didn't run for a decade. I wired it + ground because of what I could see from the coil: sw side to switch, cb to breaker. I got a new coil and connected + to contact breaker and it fires. But you will never know what kind of half job could have been done in the past.
I am dealing with a water pump rebuild. Once done I could test better all the dash functions.
Thanks!

 

[hartmandm]

For the turn signals, there is a 3 pin thermal flasher under the dash adjacent to the tachometer (at least on my series 5). Have you double checked it is still in place?



I am guessing your car has an electronic tach? If so, a key item is the double loop of wire going through the metal clip on the back. It is delivering the ignition pulses to the tach. You can see the other connections are power and ground.

Note: If you get your tach working, it likely will be inaccurate, unless someone has bothered to update some of its components. Tom H updated my tach and calibrated it. He wrote an article on the update process: http://sunbeamalpine.org/2009/12/01/repair-upgrade-for-the-sunbeam-alpine-elec-tach/

Mike

 

[mikephillips]

And if you need the ground wire clips Moss Motors carries what looks to be the same thing for TR2-4 part number 542-490, bout $5 each.
I would also suggest you run ground wires from the front turn/marker lamps and the tail light housings. They both originally grounded by way of the mounting studs against a bare spot of the bodywork. I ran the fronts from the housings by way of the mounting screws to the other side of the ground clips under the hood. The rears from under the top mount studs to one of the bolts holding the gas tank rear body mounts.

 

[hartmandm]

A couple of pictures for how I added an extra ground to the front turn/marker housings similar to what mikephillips described. I soldered the wire onto the one socket housing and used a bullet connector to go into the spare slot in the ground clip. (Which is why I needed to repair the ground clip.)

Mike

 

[smashbeat]

I have the flasher unit installed. I also have 2 spares that came with some extra parts.
None of them seems to fix the issue. Is there any way to test them?
Do I have to have all 5 bulbs working (2 front 2 rear and warning light) in order to have it working? Would the burnt warning light make the whole circuit to fail?
The switch was just rebuilt and greased and tested good on the bench. I guess next is to text ground continuity on the housing.
Thanks for all the pictures and information!

 

[hartmandm]

If a bulb is burned out, it will flash at a faster rate.

You can test the rear bulbs independent of the flasher circuit. The rear wiring harness has connectors under the left side of the dash. Look above the clutch pedal. Here are mine hanging down lower than they should.



The flasher wires are green + white and green + red. You can pull them from the connectors and apply 12V and see if the tail light bulbs light up.

In the engine bay you should find the same color wires with connectors above the wheel wells for the front lights. You can disconnect and apply voltage and check if the front bulbs light up.

Mike

 

[smashbeat]

A little update. Still not having working turn lamps.
TO recap:
The car came without turn switch and burn turn warning light
I bought a refurbished 4 wire switch from a reputable saoca member, checked, installed as per wiring and wire color match. Didn't work.
I checked the bulbs and their ground. All ok except the warning bulb. I replaced it. Now it's always on (key ignition on and car running too).
I replaced the switch unit behind the dash with a used one that I had, then with a new one. Nothing. Still warning always on.
I removed the switch unit. Still warning bulb on.
I disconnected the turn switch. Still warning bulb on.

Do I need an exorcist for that bulb???

 

[hartmandm]

Are you saying you removed the thermal flasher unit and the dash turn signal warning light still comes on? If yes, the dash turn signal warning light must be wired incorrectly. The warning light has two wires - a supply and ground. It normally gets its supply from the thermal flasher unit. There should be a green + purple wire that goes from the thermal flasher socket base to the warning light. I expect you have something else.



And then it sounds like you have some other turn signal wiring issue, too. But I'd start with figuring out the issue with how the warning light is wired.

Mike

 

[smashbeat]

Are you saying you removed the thermal flasher unit and the dash turn signal warning light still comes on? If yes, the dash turn signal warning light must be wired incorrectly. The warning light has two wires - a supply and ground. It normally gets its supply from the thermal flasher unit. There should be a green + purple wire that goes from the thermal flasher socket base to the warning light. I expect you have something else.

View attachment 23272

And then it sounds like you have some other turn signal wiring issue, too. But I'd start with figuring out the issue with how the warning light is wired.

Mike

I checked and I have a brown + yellow and a white wire to the turn signal waring light.
Somehow by working under the dash I got the turn switch to work. So now I get intermittent flashing depending on the switch.
Problem is that the waring light is always on.
The headlights high beam warning works as supposed.
The ignition warning light does not. Maybe they were inverted?

 

[Tom H]

I checked and I have a brown + yellow and a white wire to the turn signal waring light.

That's the Ignition warning light. It should be next to the ignition switch

 

[smashbeat]

That's the Ignition warning light. It should be next to the ignition switch

You are right! Someone must have switched the bulb holder, so I have the orange one next to the ignition switch and the green one where the turn should be (just checked the series 4 user manual for location). I didn't drive the car yet so I could not see the ignition warning turning off. I guess the actual turn warning bulb is burnt. I will replace and report.
Thanks