DEAD ELECTRICS

[ANDY]

Speedo stopped working so decided to remove dash board, (mk3 spit) and i belive i earthed the ignition switch, anyway i now have a dead car, apart from horn and main beam on flash. All other eletrics dead. Checked fuses all ok. Car was rewired and converted to alternator by me about a year ago. Any answers ? Andy.   PS TIP  When you remove dash board disconect battery first !

[gilesdive]

Let's try to think logically. Horn and h/lamp flash come off the same fuse (fed by a brown wire), and that is okay. That is NOT switched by ignition key.
First thing is to get a meter (or a test bulb) to check if we have power as far as the ignition switch.
The juice goes from battery to key switch. (white and red wire) From there on to all the ancillaries.
If you have power into the switch, check the power coming out - you might have burnt the switch out.
If no power going into switch, check connections, but you might have fried the wire to the switch.  

Good luck, I had to rewire a bit of mine after the alternator went dead short and turned half my wiring loom into a glowing mess.

[Deleted User]

post removed on request of author

[Deleted User]

My speedo wasn't working yesterday either, i got my car out after not using it for a while, went for a drive and something was very wrong, the speedo was going all over the place, didn't seem to have any relationship to how fast i was going and the car sounded all wrong and had no power - i worked out that the clamp from one of the carbs to the bar which makes both carbs work at the same time was loose (excuse the technical names  :P ), fixed that and then went for another drive and the speedo worked ok with low rev's but the second i started to push it the speedo would go crazy again and jump up to 120mph when i was doing about 50 and at one point almost all the way round the dial! Idea's greatly received!

[gilesdive]

If when you are doing, say, 50 mph and the speedo is wobbling around from zero to 100+, there are 2 things I would check check.

First a nicely kinked speedo cable, so that isn't turning smoothly and evenly. Check no tight corners in it, but if the inner twirly bit (there must be a better term for it) is badly kinked it will be time for a new one. Bad news, interior trim out to get to the gearbox end, one of my least favourite jobs.

Second if something is sticking inside the speedo head you can get a similar effect (well, you could on a Fiat I had once, I assume Triumph ones could do something similar) I stripped it down, cleaned moving bits with alcohol and all was ok.

[Deleted User]

Thanks for the advice, i'll check for that in the next few days, am changing the dashboard anyway so will check while doing that, i'm halfway through changing the exhaust manifold at the moment!