Welcome to the world of intermittant electricity.
Ah, how well do I remember... it was only 8 months ago, on my 1st nite
drive with my newly aquired '76B- bought during daylight hours, and with
the headlight switch positioned for normal on. I found my left headlight
was set on high while my right was on low. With my trusty multimeter and a
copy of Bentley's circuit for my '76B, I traced the two circuits, and found
that the right and left headlight plugs were oppositely wired. I did the
obvious...I rewired one of headlights...flipped a coin actually as to which
one.
Wrong one.
With the headlight switch on (but not on high), both headlights were now on
high and I could live with
that...because with the switch set to the high position, both headlights
were set to low beam. Simply mental adjustment.
Only now the turn signals were bonkers.
I talked with the pres of our club (Southern NJ British Car Club), and he
suggested starting over so I did. I rewired the socket to its original
wiring and started again. After 4 hours of tracing, I finally found that
the DPO (is that dumb previous owner or should it be MPO, malicious
previous owner) had flipped the bullet plugs of the left front headlight in
the harness behind the left headlight. Took 15 seconds to fix after all
that time.
And that was fun????
Yea, it was.
Good luck. Bentley's and a multimeter are indespensible. It takes time.
You'll probably have to clean the exposed wires to see the wire colors and
is horribly frustration untill success which will come. And then it is
worth it.
And then the car will really be yours.
Bill
Use logic. If the flasher works, then the wiring is ok. If it does not
operate correctly in the sense of amplitude, then it may be a problem with
the way the connections are made (lost voltage). As well as replacing the
bulb, sounds like a cleaning of connections and a check of the security of
the ground for that lamp is necessary.
At 10:57 PM 2/10/1999 -0500, you wrote:
>Well, I'm a real MG owner now...
>
>On a ride tonight, I noticed that people weren't responding to my (front)
>left turn signal. Sure enough, when I got home, there was something wrong
>with it. ONLY the front left turn lamp is about 75% dimmer than the others.
>It flashes, it lights, but it's suddenly quite dim.
>
>It seems that the wires to it go (it's a 77B...) up to where the horn lives,
>which is behind a grating held by screws.
>
>I'm no mechanic, and a complete novice...but I'm going to learn, and here's
>the first lesson. Any coaching will be gratefully received!
>Thanks in advance...
>
>Allen and Marian
>Columbus, Ohio
>77B, Brooklands Green, "Prolly"
>(Which car are you taking? "Prolly" the MG....)
>
>
>
>
**********************************************************************
Dr. Bill Saidel
Assoc. Prof. Vocal phone (609) 225-6336
Department of Biology FAX (609) 225-6312
Science Building email: saidel@crab.rutgers.edu
315 Penn St.
Rutgers, the State University of New Jersey
Camden, NJ 08102 -1411
http://crab.rutgers.edu/~saidel/saidel.html
"Between the approximation of the idea and the precision
of reality, there is a small gap of the unimaginable."
Milan Kundera - "The Unbearable Lightness of Being"
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