Headlight Wires

[brett]

Please help ! I'm hoping someone here will know what these four wires are for !
They are in the headlight loom at the front offside of the car and these are the only still disconnected wires I have.
I have working from this loom - sidelights, dip beam's, horn and the brake light switch. Some of these wires must be to make the main beam work.
The headlights have their own earth wires which are OK.
My car's a 1955 Series 2 facelift with the bronze speedometer and cloth wiring loom.

[mike.perry]

If you could tell which colour was which that would be useful. You will have to check each wire with a test lght and see which wire lights the test light when you turn on a switch.
The headlight wire is blue from light switch to dip switch, main beam is blue/white from dip switch to headlight, dip beam is blue/red from dip switch to headlight. Red wires are side/tail lights

[bmcecosse]

Is that a special colour code for early cars? Normally MAIN is blue/white and DIP is blue/red....

[brett]

Thanks for the input.
I tried to get the best photo that I could of the colours of the wires but they're so old and grubby that it's so hard to make out the colours of them except the dark red one which seems to be dead no matter what.
I have used a power probe and ( I can't remember which colours off the top of my head ) except for light red wire lights the probe on sidelights as stated and they work fine, one of the others lights it on dip and they too work fine. Then the strange bit, another wires lights the probe when main beam is selected but if this is connected to the main beams themselves when they are switched on they don't come on and neither does the warning light but the nearside dip beam goes out too. Then when the dip switch is pressed again ( to turn off main beam ) both dip beams go off and if I try the power probe only the sidelight wire still has power. After a short time the dip beam wire will show power again and they will once again switch on.
The headlight switch seems OK as do it's wires and I've tried a known working dip switch with no luck.
I can only find wiring diagrams for later Minor's with plastic covered wires with normal colourings.
Would the lights have had 1 feed to the offside front and then been joined across to the nearside or would they have had they're own wires to each side ? I can't think of any other reason for 4 seemingly unused wires.
I suppose the moral of the story is not to buy a car which has had the entire headlight loom cut, unless you're an auto electrician !

[mike.perry]

Is that a special colour code for early cars? Normally MAIN is blue/white and DIP is blue/red....

Posting corrected, must proof read more carefully
The main blue feed is from the light switch to dip switch then blue/white to main beam and blue/red to dip beam. The wires divide at bullet connectors to the left and right headlamps. Check that the correct wires are in the bullet connectors, not dip in main beam etc.

[bmcecosse]

Sounds like bad earth symptoms there -with lights going off ....