Last few details

[napa 1]

Just wrapping up the Harrington and have a few mystery wiring details before I take it on the road form the first time in 5 years. Any thoughts on these would be appreciated.

1. Turn signals work fine, blink, cancel, but the green indicator lights in the gauges do not light up or blink. Hmmmm

2. Brake light switch does not seem to be working. Jumping the wires at the switch causes the brake lights to light so I assume it's a faulty switch...It's the original switch, do these tend to be faulty over time?

3. Horn just makes a tinny click instead of a honk. it's a series two with no horn relay.

4. Rev counter is not registering anything with engine idling. (it's an impulse rev counter rather than mechanical.

Wiring harness was removed and restored. Grounds were cleaned and secured, etc. All parts are new or restored.

Thanks for any pointers

 

[alpine_64]

John,

I'm the first to say electrics are not my strong point.. but things that might be worth trying.

1. Turn signals work fine, blink, cancel, but the green indicator lights in the gauges do not light up or blink. Hmmmm -

are the 2 waring lights earthed? Can you make them come on without the switch?

2. Brake light switch does not seem to be working. Jumping the wires at the switch causes the brake lights to light so I assume it's a faulty switch...It's the original switch, do these tend to be faulty over time?

The original switches tend to be better than the repro ones, but given how long its been it might have gone faulty. if you are getting lights by bypassing its most likely. Also.. for what its worth, many of us had issues with the witches if we used silicone fluid.. seemed to make them fail.

 

[bernd_st]

John,

All of this sounds somewhat familiar:

1) either instrument ground is missing or the warning lights are not properly connected to the respective terminals on the flasher relay

2) Must be a faulty switch. Avoid silicone brake fluid

3) Jump ground the horn ( the other Terminal than +12V). If it still only clicks the membran is stuck. Spray it with WD 40 and wait overnight...

4) Would bet on a wrong connection. The white +12V wire has to go through the plastic loop in the correct orientation. The metalbridge has to be there with proper contact. Think You checked proper instrument for the car, i.e. Positive or negative ground...

 

[Tom H]

Napa,

1) Re the flasher indicators, I'm afraid the two replies you have so far are off target. Assuming your car IS wired as an SII, then the flasher indicators should NOT be grounded. It's a more complex wiring than the later series cars with a single indicator. Take a look at the SII wiring diagram you can download from here:
http://www.sunbeamalpine.org/index.php?categoryid=85

Then try to trace and see if something is not connected

2) Yup faulty switch. Maybe get one of Bill Blue's mechancal switch kits

3) I like berndt's solution

4) I think the original tach was mechanical. So this must be a replacement. As Berndt noted , be sure it matches system polarity . Does the dial say "Pos earth" or "neg Earth"? There should be two white wires on the rear. One powers the tach and is attached by a flag connector. the other is the pulse sensing wire and it should loop thru the steel C clip. and be sure the steel C clip makes contact at BOTH tips with the mating tip protruding out from inside. Neither of these two white wires was part of the original SII wiring so I'm not sure if they are there and correct.

Tom

 

[Hillman]

2 & 3 ring a bell with me.

2) Whack the switch with a hammer (possibly blunted by a chunk of wood). It cured my 'disappearing' brake lights, although I've bought Bill's mechanical kit.

3) The brush between the steering column and wheel didn't pass enough current to blow the horns. Shorting to ground made noise so I installed relays. They can be wired with no mods to the current wiring harness. PM me if you want details for SII.

 

[napa 1]

Thanks a lot guys

Yes car is wired as a series two. I'll double check all connections. The harness is restored as original.

Yes tach is a later series pulse tach as I am running a 1725 in the car until the original engine is rebuilt. It came out of a negative ground car, but I'll double check. I think I probably don't have the loop part done correctly so I'll check it out carefully

I'll pm bill about purchasing one of his switches.

Thanks

 

[Tom H]

John,

Is your car still Pos earth, as original?? or has is been converted to Neg earth?

You say the harness is restored as original. An original SII harness did not have a white wire from ignition switch to power the tach. And the white wire from the Ign switch to the coil went to the fuse holder and then to the coil, not looping thru the clip on the tach. I assume someone added these wires and may have not added them correctly.

Tom

 

[napa 1]

I mean to say the original harness from the car was removed and restored. while i had it out i added runs of wire for anything extra like, fog lights, bonnet lamp, rear view mirror light, volt meter, etc. The car has been wired as negative ground with any changes made that were necessary. Everything is sweet except: the horns, brake light switch, turn signal dash lights and Rev counter.

 

[Tom H]

John,

OK, makes sense now. BUT, I note that you say you "added" runs of wire. Good to add the white wire needed to power the tach. BUT if you also "added" a wire to loop thru the pick up on the rear of the tach , that would not work. You need to "replace" the white wire to the coil in the original harness with a wire that loops thru the tach pick up. Maybe you've done that but its not clear that you did.

And I assume the tach is grounded. You can tell easily - if the tach lamp works then the tach is grounded.

Tom

 

[napa 1]

Ok Tom thanks. I think you've solved my tach problem. I have a separate wire looped through the tach and going to the coil. So, Following your direction, I will run a new wire from ignition/fuse block, loop it through tach, and on to coil. Got it now. Thanks

 

[Tom H]

Hey hey, sounds good. Of course I can't be sure that it will work now, but I CAN be pretty sure it would not work as it was. The tach needs that loop to sense the current going to the coil, and if there are two paths for the current to the coil, it's likely that less than half the current goes thru the loop so the tach would not read the pulses. Again, be sure the tips of the steel c-clip make contact with the mating tips. To assure that I usually make sure the C-clip straddles the outside of each tip. And you might need to reverse the direction of the loop.

Once you get it working it is likely to read about 50% high, unless someone has recalibrated it sometime since it was first made 48 years ago! See my article on updating and recalibrating these tachs:

http://www.sunbeamalpine.org/downloads/alpine_tach_repair_rev5.pdf

Tom

 

[napa 1]

Wow you guys are good!

Solved:

Wired tach as you described and now I have rpm reading...and as you said, it seems to be reading slighly high, maybe 1400 rpm at idle...so I'll check out your recalibration article next. But, in the mean time, happy to have it Working.

Horns...jump grounded horns and found still clicking noise, hooked up a temporary cheap repro horn and it works fine. So tried bernds wd40 trick and will wait to see if that helps the horns come back to life.

All tests lead to conclusion that brake light problem is a bad brake light switch Wacking it didn't help. Bill has sold out of his mechanical kits, so i ordered new switch and hopefully that will do the trick.

So, last is the indicator dash lights...still haven't figured that one out...but I can certainly drive it now while I try to figure it out. Worst case, last resort, I guess i could just run new wires from the lights themselves to the dash lights

THANKS!

 

[Hillman]

Maybe a dumb question but have you put 12 volts across the bulbs to see if they are ok?

If they are, just use a multi-meter and go backwards (on the wiring diagram) until you get a voltage. Work forward from there.

 

[napa 1]

Thanks. No, it's a good question. I did that earlier today just to be sure.

Oh, also, on the fuel gauge, does the hot wire and the wire from the sender have to be on one side or the other of the gauge? The wiring diagram does not specify. I think I have a bad sender, as usual. Power to the gauge is fine, but no reading from the gauge. The temp gauge is working fine.

 

[Hillman]

As per gauges, I just converted my SII from + to - ground. Gauges weren't changed and appear to work (I don't have an ammeter or voltmeter). You might want to measure the resistance on the fuel sending unit. I don't know what you should expect but I do know I've read it here. Try google site search as the search function of this site leaves a bit to be desired.