LESSON LEARNED

I didn’t forget to earth the regulator, that was the first job and then I went on to the lighting switch.

The new light switch just had screw down terminals so I only had to trim back the insulation and insert the wires. I knew that there was going to be a problem with the supply to the sidelights which was separate from the main lights, but after trying several alternative ways of connecting it, I simply fed the side lights from the headlamp feed, via the switch. I can still run on just sidelights, but only with the ignition on, so I can’t use them as parking lights, but who does these days?

The supply to the starter button and the new instrument lights I connected to the sidelight position on the switch and the now redundant supply to the sidelights I diverted to power my little, side mounted spot light.

Next was to run a couple of supplies from the ignition switch to the auxiliary fuse box, first one was to power the voltmeter, fuel gauge and the fuel pump, but only when the ignition switch was fully turned on, just one wire would do and then piggy backed to the other two fuse inputs.

 The other supply came from the permanently live position of the ignition switch and was to supply the 12v power socket and the clock. Here I made a big mistake, having fitted an isolator switch; I failed to turn it to OFF whilst making the connection. The result was, when I checked the circuits I had no power anywhere. After I spent an age puzzling what I had done I separated the main connector block to find that the connection of the main supply wire had melted, obviously there must have been a short circuit and this was weakest link in the circuit, there being no fuse up to the ignition switch. The only way to resolve this problem was to cut the wires both side of the block and bypass it. It was a fiddle, but when done full power was restored.  Lesson learned, when working anywhere on the wiring, ensure the switch is OFF.

The photo immediately above shows the red wire that now bypasses the main connector block and the empty block is awaiting the bunch of cables that will go to the column mounted indicator, dip/main switch, almost the next job.