Sacre Bleu!

[Alan Armstrong]

Thanks to all I met at the NEC this weekend, looking at fully built cars and talkingb to those that know was extremely helpful.

HOWEVER,,,now coming to the end of electrical investigations on my Herald, I came across thwe greatest no no of all.

Having identified all under the bonnet wiring, I was still missing a wire from the ignition to the coil. This i identified as a white wire which passes through the flasher unit.

Having found both whites (1 in to the flasher and 1 out) thw white wire to the coil dissappeared ! After cutting into more underbonnet loom, I filnd a bullet connector from the missing libve white wire onto a BLACK wire!!! What a plonker...any colour but black!!

I feel relieved I found it before earthing the blacks and adding a battery!

Once my new stock of bullets and connectors arrive, I can make sure all circuits are safe and not going to short out, I will add a battery and move onto re-assembling the engine to re-commission a start up (comp test first)....

[Howard]

I have encountered a similar problem on my TR with black used as a live conductor Aghh!

FYI I am replacing all non standard live wiring with yellow (+tracer colour as required) to make fault identification easier.

[glang]

Yes for any vehicle with unknown wiring before power up its best to test the battery connections to earth with a multimeter while operating every possible switch (especially ignition switch all positions) and circuit. Even then some circuits powered by relays, such as starter, OD  or cooling fan will not have been proved so should be tested separately...

[RobPearce]

1 hour ago, Howard said:

I have encountered a similar problem on my TR with black used as a live conductor

The one that nearly caught me out when helping a friend some years back, was that a lot of German-built cars use a Bosch standard where brown is ground.

[drofgum]

Hi,

Instead of connecting a battery for the first live test, use a small battery charger. The circuit breaker in the charger will open if there is a short, and the charger will not send damaging current through the harness.

Regards,

Paul

[glang]

Got to be an old fashioned charger though as I find modern ones now dont give an output unless they detect theyre connected to a battery🥴 

[Wendy Dawes]

When I took my Herald loom out and replaced burnt out wiring from a previous fire (before I bought it) I have now fitted in line fuses to the horn, lights and ignition circuits as a failsafe on these live circuits