Tony Zappa wrote:
[snip]Last week everything was fine. Yesterday I put in new demister hoses
(they were missing) and now none of the lights, wiper motor, or
heater motor work. I'm sure I have a short somewhere, but a couple
hours of poking around this morning failed to turn up anything.
My questions are:
1. in a wiring diagram I have there is a Control Box and Voltage
Stabliser listed. As it looks like the previous owner(s) redid the
entire system, where should these be? [snip]
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The control box should be mounted to the center of the bulkhead in the
engine compartment. The control box is small black box about the size of a
couple of bars of soap, and there are about a half dozen wires running into
the bottom. I'd be surprised if your car doesn't have one as it is sort of
the "central nervous system" for the electricals of the car.
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[snip]2. If I took the plunge and decided to re-wire the car (all of my
wires are either red, yellow, brown, or grey, making it very
difficult to ascertain what goes with what) would a new loom be in
the original colours, or would it be better to work with what I have?[snip]
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My experience is that a new wiring harness is well worth the $150 or so it
costs, if you have any serious concerns about the existing harness, etc. It
sounds as though there has been a lot of cut and splice work done on your
electrical system over the years. A new harness will be fully color coded
(or at least is supposed to be - buy from a reputable source such as John
Kipping Spares, TRF or Rimmer Bros.) It's somewhat of a pain in the arse to
install a new harness in a car that has not had its interior removed,
however, if you proceed slowly and methodically it is pretty
straightforward. BTW, I would STRONGLY recommend that you have someone
assist you in tracing all of the wiring as you go along. My lovely wife
helped me and without her assistance I think I would have pulled my hair out
(at least the part that's gray - I can't spare much more of the brown
stuff).
Ross D. Vincenti
64 Spitfire 4
64 Porsche 356C Coupe
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