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Re: Surprises in Hayward (CA) Pick-your-part

To: british-cars@encore.com
Subject: Re: Surprises in Hayward (CA) Pick-your-part
From: gerry@speedy.att.com
Date: Mon, 28 Jan 91 13:49 EST
The gremlins have struck !!!!

Today, I found that when I turned the ignition, I blew a fuse.

So I put in another fuse, and the instant the ign is turned on,
the fuse blows.

The circuits involved are :

brake lights
turn signals
rev lights
overdrive
guages (fuel, temp, volts, tacho)
wiper works but does not self-park


So just as an experiment, I shorted the fuse connections with
a short piece of wire, and hey presto everything works (not a big
surprise !!!). What did surprise me, was the wire I used to short the
fuse out was not getting hot, not even mildly warm. Yet every
fuse I install blows (rated at 50 A circuit). I would
expected that if there is a short somewhere, the wire I installed
would have become fairly hot, but it did not. So I drove
the car like this for a few minuites and checked the wire,
sure enough it was not getting warm or hot. BTW, everything
works as expected i.e. wipers, brake lights, guages etc.

(The wiring harness is original, never been butchered - and
this is the first electrical problem I have ever had)



My questions are :

If there is a short, would the wire not get hot ?

If there is a short, how do I start trackit down, because
the fuse blows, when none of the compnents on the curcuit
are switched on ?


My next question aslso concerns electrics :
On the Midget (1500), the alterbnator has 3 wires coming from
it 
1 - very thick brown
1 - very thin brown
1 - very thin brown/yellow

The thick brown goes to the starter relay, but where do the
other 2 wires go to ? The brown/yellow goes to the charging
light (I think), the thin brown I think goes to the starter
relay (hot 12V ???) Can anybody shed some light ?

I have re-wried the whole car, making up my own harness as 
I go along, the reason being that every circuit is independant, 
each is fused (12 fuses), and each circuit has an dependant earth.
I have also removed all useless wiring, eg seat belt warning,
door open warning, etc etc


The ignition switch is no longer installed, and all circuits
are controlled by independant toggle switches which function
on their own, with the ignition switched on or off.

The last obstacle is to wire the alternator, so if anybody
can show me how this should be wired , I'd appreciate it. the
Haynes manual is of no use to me now, because my wiring does
ressemble it at all

Thanks

Gerry


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