Windscreen washers/squirters

[Bradjones7105]

Window screen washers/squirters.
I thought I'd cured the problem thinking it was the stalk playing up, basically they don't work and the fasten seat belt light dims when pressing the stalk in, after a few blips of the stalk they might work, disconnect the loom to stalk conector, and bridge the wires and the problem is still there, ruling out the stalk in my opinion,  wire the pump to the batter and it works straight away, ruling the pump out, so the problem is somewhere between the pump and the loom/stalk connector,  is there an earth behind the dash, if so where abouts, also to add, when turning overdrive off at high rmp, the indicator lights in the cluster give a dim flicker, could this be related??

[Nick Jones]

I think you are looking in the right area. Definitely a volt-drop issue and the other symptoms make the earth question worth a look, though I thought the pump had its own earth. Not familiar enough with the late Spitfires to point you closer but iirc there are also some multi-plugs behind the dash which don’t always make great contact.

Nick

[RobPearce]

It does sound like there's some resistance somewhere. The problem is that, if you're on the original loom, it's likely to be a systemic "every connector is a little bit resistive" problem, more than a single point issue. It's also not impossible that the washer pump is a contributing factor; if it's a bit stiff and weak then a fresh direct connection will work but the slightly-past-its-best loom produces enough of a voltage drop that it doesn't defeat the initial stiction.

It's probably also worth looking at the fuses. It's not at all uncommon to have poor connections there.