Guys,
I note that Dave quite understandably wanted to close the starter motor & starting issue topic.
I have seen Michael's last photo at the front of the engine bay looking towards the engine from the right hand side.
At the risk of being pedantic ,that wiring is not as originally set up. The only wires there are from the end of the main harness that feeds the near side lights, indicator & horn. The original wiring is all hidden in the recess where the horn is mounted.
I know having completely pulled it out & put the same loom back when i refurbished under the bonnet 3 years ago.
The ballast is tucked under the brake master cylinder as per the attached photo.
Cheers,
Charles
Hi Charles
I don’t own a rubber bumper car so you will definitely will have more first hand knowledge than me. The picture I posted was taken in good faith from a car that was supposedly original so apologies for any misleading information. I always thought the ballast resistor was a pink wire that ran down the offside loom of the car to the front and across the slam panel to aid cooling where it terminated to the White green wire running back to the coil. Maybe BL changed the ballast resistor arrangement during production. They certainly made lots of changes to the wiring between 1975 and finish of production.
Thanks for pointing this out and more than happy to be corrected.
Mike Barclay
There were certainly many changes to the wiring harnesses over the years, never mind the variants for overseas. It isn't helped by the fact that not every change was necessarily recorded on the wiring diagrams that are available. Indeed some have discrepancies including omissions & colours of wiring & i tend to use the official BL ones in the ROM , Haynes & Bentley as required! The last few years of production as you point out had lots of changes.
I have learnt a lot from this forum & others & saved myself loads of head scratching & grief.
I liked your suggestion of the double pole relay & am tempted to try that 87b approach on an ignition relay to create a feed to the headlights , rather than running a new wire down to the main post on the starter solenoid. I would prefer that , instead of putting a piggy back on the existing ignition relay. This way the headlights would only work when the ignition was on. I think you said there was a fused relay , with the double pole. Can you let me know the spec & where you sourced it? I have the double relay kit (for main & dipped) so i would end up with 2 relays in line ..... Whether i would still gain brightness & at the same time protect the headlight switch i am not sure!
Hi Charles
There are several solutions to this but as your car looks very original I would suggest the following approach.
Replace the existing ignition relay with a Lucas type SRB400 relay. This has the same round 26RA shape as the existing relay. The only issue is that it has a blue body but I think it would look better than using the alternative square relays that seem to be standard fit on most cars these days. As you are going to add a new feed wire to the headlight relays I would fit an inline fuse similar to the existing ones already fitted to your car. This way you would not have to alter any of your cars existing wiring.
Take a look at AES https://www.autoelectricsupplies.co.uk
Lucas26RA SRB400 relay https://www.autoelectricsupplies.co.uk/ ... tegory/113
Inline Fuse holder https://www.autoelectricsupplies.co.uk/ ... ategory/62
Hope this helps.
Best regards
Mike Barclay
Thanks for your advice.
I have used AES before & purchased a few in line fuse holders before from them ( used one during my under bonnet refurbishment to install a fuse for the overdrive where the 3 harnesses meet on the inner front wing). Given the danger of wires getting chafed where the overdrive switch is on the gear lever, it is essential to prevent the possibility of a fire............
At the same time as purchasing the above i bought some square relays , intending to have at least 4+ in a row to cover starting , ignition, headlights main & dipped , electric fan. But during the refurbishment , i was so pleased with the results that i decided to stay with the original set up as far as possible. (Earlier cars where the rad support is set back,i believe lends itself more easily to a revised relay set up & have seen several examples where the relays are mounted on the support - there isn't the space on the later RB forward rad support which is also very close to the expansion tank).
Your approach is a good compromise, provided it neither effects the ongoing power to the LT side of the coil when the engine is running & there is a noticeable improvement & continued stability in the headlights. (At the moment I should be getting power to the headlights to the level intended as it came out of the factory given that i replaced the headlight switch last summer (as it & the ignition switch itself were playing up so i had to remove the cowling on the steering column) & all the female connectors were replaced & bullets cleaned & Permatex applied on reassembly & the car isn't used in the winter months).
