Morris Minor Owners Club

jagnut66 wrote: ↑Sun Sep 08, 2019 9:03 pm
There's no wiring for a heater in the loom either, which seems a bit remiss of the manufacturers. Not a major issue though, just an earth and a live feed.
Were they still only optional in 1954?

Yes
Mine is an after market addition in a '55

jagnut66 wrote: ↑Mon Sep 09, 2019 9:02 pm Blimey! I thought they'd have been standard by then, so when did heaters become standard equipment?

I suspect with the introduction of the '1000' in '56, since that was principally intended to make the model far easier to produce, with fewer variables on the assembly line, so putting a heater in every car would seem to fit that thought process.

Perhaps someone can shed a definitive light on this?

A bit nicer to look at now.....
Plus it allowed to eliminate all the hacking, chopping and splicing that the front half of the loom had endured over the decades as well.
Along with the opportunity to clean up a few connections, such as the brake light switch. I also refurbished the horn and polished up its brass nut!
I have incorporated the wires for the built in sidelights in my new P700 headlights into the head lamp loom sections, unfortunately the new sidelight bases come with unsheathed wires, so I have had to source the nearest match I could find on eBay:
https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Various-Size ... 2749.l2649
Oh and I have found a use for that green wire with a red stripe, so no surplus wires in the new loom now.
Best wishes,
Mike.

PS: The coil wiring will be tidied when I re-site it back on the bulkhead and the wiring that goes across the top of that brake pipe will be corrected when I renew my brake pipes in the near future.

hi mate
what gauge of wire did you use for the rear loom??
cheers
Stu

what gauge of wire did you use for the rear loom??

Hi Stu,
I sourced my wiring locally from Halfords, to save on time and postage (plus it's probably just as cheap as any that I could find online), I bought a mixture of 8 amp and 17 amp, which should cover most wiring requirements. The only colour I wanted that Halfords doesn't seem to stock anymore is white, for which I sourced some 8 amp and 17 amp from eBay.
I should say that I have solved the problem of the wiring to the rear of the car my way. There are plenty on here that will shoot me down for it, if not publicly then privately but the point of this post was to offer 'one possible' solution and to get people discussing the problem, which does exist and I still think the original wiring route to the rear of the car is (politely putting it) rubbish.
Best wishes,
Mike.

PS: The engine bay is now looking a bit cleaner and tidier.

thanks mate
i like the idea of running inside as well to save all the grud over the wiring loom
any ore pics of the engine bay wiring?
cheers
Stu

As an aside, to get over (or under ) the issue of the front bar on the seat frame I've stuck two rubber 'blocks' either side of the trunking to allow the frame to be tightened down, without crushing the trunking. Works so far.
The engine bay is still empty at present, as I'm still fettling the engine.
Best wishes,
Mike.

thanks for the pics looking good
stu

jagnut66 wrote: ↑Mon Aug 26, 2019 7:22 pm Hi,
I don't know if others have had trouble with the wiring to the back of the Morris Minor before but on each of the three I have had there have been issues, that basically stem from the route taken by the wiring harness to the rear of the vehicle.
Namely underneath, with no protection from the elements / salt / sharp objects but the cloth sheathing it comes wrapped in, which soon becomes a sodden oil clogged mess.
Sally, it turns out, is a flasher......
Or she was till I caught her at it................
What I mean by this is that when the brakes were applied all the (side) lights flashed on and off with them, front and rear!
Well it was certainly different........
Not surprisingly, I suspected the oil sodden hacked about and re-jointed mess that was passing itself off as wiring to the rear.
Time for drastic action, in the form of a rear rewire.
However this time I wasn't going to be following the original electrical disaster waiting to happen route under the car, I was going to go through the interior.
But which way, you can't run down the middle because of the (removable) gearbox tunnel cover. If you run them right next to the sills and then have to repair said sills it will get in the way there.
So I opted for the middle road, steering a path clear of pedal depression and utilising some black 'D' shaped self adhesive plastic trunking, which 'hinges open to one side and then snaps nicely closed again.
I now effectively have a new rear loom which, although not original in style (or route!), I know which wire colour feeds what.
I say that because wherever I have connected into the original loom I find that, even if it had a colour code originally, the cloth outer sheathing is now uniformly the same muddy grey colour and when this is removed the plastic coating every wire is black!
So it was a question of powering up and deducing what feeds what.
That said I have enjoyed the challenge and now have brake lights and side lights that work completely separately from each other.
Am I alone or have others had issues with this section of the loom?
Best wishes,
Mike.

Almost certainly a poor earth on the brake light system

I have never had any problems caused by the loom being underneath the car. The only problems I have ever had with the rear lights on my Minors has been poor connections and, as you say, poor earths - usually due to corrosion.
I do agree however that on earlier cars with the cloth insulation, that the colours fade and become impossible to distinguish. the only reliable solution is then to replace the loom.

Hi,
As an update to this post, during the strip-down of Sally all the rear wiring was disconnected and wrapped up out of the way.
Now, in the intervening period, I have discovered that 'Autosparks', who remake our looms for the various main suppliers, also sell the same colour coded wiring to 'Joe Public' by the meter, at a very reasonable price.....
So I've remade my rear loom (again), still routing it through the interior of the car, rather than exposed to all the elements underneath it, however it's now in the (period) correct colour codes, all of which can be found in the workshop manual.
I have to say it does fit in better as a result.
I've also bought enough length to reroute it around the side of the car (and away from the pedals / seat frame at the same time, thus removing any possibility of undue wear caused by the my original route) in some protective black / red sleeving (still under the carpet / sound deadening) and therefore feel able to dispense with the 'D' trunking also.
To anyone wishing to purchase wiring for themselves, I have found the 17 amp cable matches the size of the existing wiring in our cars.
https://www.autosparks.co.uk/electrical ... sa-2-00mm2
Anything smaller in diameter looks like it was intended for a model railway......
I've included a link to the cable sleeving I've used below.
Best wishes,
Mike.

https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/283654843677 ... 4997041353