So near yet so far...

[bmcecosse]

Yes - it will make contact.

[ian.mcdougall]

Have you checked if the slip ring and contact brush on column below mounting bracket are making contact properly.

[stag36587]

That's Saturday's job once I've helped son put a new Gearstick bushing onto his MG ZR

[stag36587]

Ok so with horn connected in the engine bay a light touch on the steering wheel will sound the horn - clearly not what me or anyone else will want!

So, I have taken steering wheel off to have a look - do these pics look ok? In particular the copper contact point on the right - should that touch the brass ring assembly or lower down on the column? It was touching the column lower down so I have moved it to touch the brass ring?

Oh and the wire going through the column is definitely brown/black rather than lilac black - interestingly enough I also had a non-standard wire colour on the oil pressure switch.[frame][/frame][frame][/frame]


As ever very grateful for all your help - it's made a huge difference to this restoration already

Thanks

[ian.mcdougall]

Contact should be on brass ring make sure the bolt in column trips the indicator to the centre position after turning on when turning wheel, also check the bolt is not too far out or not far enough, if it needs adjusting loosen the locking nut for adjustment

[stag36587]

Ian I am wondering if the self cancel bolt and/or steering column is miles out of alignment - it won't engage with anything at the moment! Am I right in assuming it should sit in line with the indicator stalk when both front wheels are in straight ahead position? Because at the moment it is about 80 degrees out!

[bmcecosse]

Yes indeed - you will need to turn the column.

[stag36587]

Yes it was miles out and the little bolt was never going to make contact with the self cancel mechanism. A few minutes with the spanner, the column is realigned, the self cancel mechanism works properly and I now have a horn!

Once again thanks to everyone on this forum.

[bmcecosse]

Great success ! What's next.....?

[stag36587]

Erm, check fuel gauge (there's a new sender but tank showing empty even though it's at least half full) then brake light switch. That should finally conclude the electrics!

[ian.mcdougall]

Excellent work ,you won't go far wrong when you listen to the advice given on this site

[stag36587]

So last week I discovered that my indicators - which had been working fine (see above) conked out in a random way - offside rear wouldn't work at all and the indicator stalk light was permanently on at rest. Initially I assumed bulb had blown and/or faulty earth but double checking both made no difference. I bought a new flasher unit and fitted that today and normal service is resumed.

I now turned my attention to the non-functioning fuel gauge. After reading other threads I earthed the sender supply lead to the body and the gauge climbed to full. I'm assuming the brand new sender
must be faulty therefore, unless there are any other ideas?

Attached is photo of how voltage stabiliser is wired up
just in case I've made a mistake there. The VS to fuel gauge rh terminal is 2nd from the right in this photo.

Thanks for any advice you can give on this?[frame][/frame]

[drivewasher]

IIRC you should have only 3 dark green wires on the "B" terminal of the voltage stabiliser and only one on the other terminal (i think it's "T" or "I" and that should bee thelight green link to one side of the gauge. The other side of the gauge has 1 wire thar goes to the tank sender.
It looks like you have got the tank sender wire on the voltage stabiliser.

Voltage stabiliser has only two conections but they are both doubled giving you 2 conections BUT 4 terminals IE 2 terminals marked "B" for battery AND 2 terminals for gauges or output marked "I" or "T" you should therfore have 3 dark green on the B terminal and just the link to the fuel gauge on the other one, a total of 4 wires. You seem to have 5 wires which is why I think one of them should be on the actuall fuel gauge

[drivewasher]

Looking at your pic of voltage stabiliser. Number the wire spades from left to right. No1 the first is a double green that looks right. No2 is it the flash makes it look like a yellow marker on the green wire? Does that wire go to the tank sender? if so it should be on the fuel gauge terminal, the other fuel gauge terminal comes over to No3 on the voltage stabiliser that's right in your pic. The green wire on your No4 stabiliser terminal should be on No2. that would leave No4 empty that seems ok then

[stag36587]

Thanks. At the moment, the green/yellow wire at no.2 actually comes from the heater so perhaps that should go somewhere else.

The sender wire is attached to the LH (empty) terminal on the fuel gauge, the short wire at no.3 on the VS is attached to the RH (full) terminal on the fuel gauge.

[drivewasher]

Here is best pic I can find of mine, new harness fitted you can just see 3 green wires on one side "B" terminals of the voltage stabiliser. 1 green link on the other side of VS running down to one side of the fuel gauge. On the other side (nearest camera) of fuel gauge is the green/brown wire going to the tank sender unit.[frame][/frame]

[stag36587]

Thanks again, I'll make sure mine is wired as yours and see if that makes a difference! Hopefully someone will also come along and tell me where the heater wire should go.

[bmcecosse]

The heater feed should be a green wire - no yellow flash.

[drivewasher]

The heater feed should be a green wire - no yellow flash.

Yes IIRC one of the 3 dark green wires on terminal "B" is split with a bullet connector further down the harness and the heater just "piggy backs" from there. However I think there are green/yellow wire/s from the oil filter warning lamp & the oil pressure warning lamp to their respective earths via the switches on the engine and the filter housing. The feed to both these lamps IIRC are both green and are taken from that bullet conector for the heater.

[stag36587]

Very interesting, I'll have a look for a piggy back opportunity for the heater wire. The wiring on my car is slightly unusual anyway as I have some non-standard wire colours although they all appear to be original, e.g. the oil pressure wire is green/brown, my horn feed wire is black/brown etc. Having said that, the green/yellow heater wire seems to have a nonstandard black rather than clear connector - does that suggest some tinkering by the previous owner I wonder.