Morris Minor Owners Club

Having endless problems with my courtesy light. It's never worked, so this weekend I began a drive on getting it lit. It doesn't work either from the door switches or from the roof switch. Now, at first the problem seemed simple: the wires coming out of the ceiling never came out under the dashboard, so weren't connected. Found those with a bit of searching, connected them up, no joy. (New bulb, tested and not broken). Took out the little light unit, that has the switch and three contacts on, and connected it directly to the battery: Nothing happened! With much testing it transpires that although with one wire connected to earth (ie the main body of the unit) and one the base terminal of the bulb itself, it lights, but if one tries to do with the one on earth and the other on the copper contact that rests on the bulb, nothing happens. I seem to have come across the singular phenomenon of non-conducting copper...
All right, that's not too bad. I can bypass the copper and connect the wire straight to the bulb, leaving the earths connected where they should be. That works.
HOWEVER (You'll see a lot of these!):
There is no current reaching the wires in the ceiling. One of them (the purple) had a black coating on the stripped copper, which quite clearly would hinder conduction. I removed it; nothing happened. All right, I thinks, I'll replace that wiring.
HOWEVER!
Before I did so, I put the bulb to the purple and black wires that come directly from the (brand new and fullly functional) wiring loom, bypassing the wires run through the door pillar etc, which were the ones which I suspected did not work. Well, how nice. The bulb did not light when connected directly to the wiring loom. You understand, where I'd put the bulb there was no form of connection except pure copper wire (maybe more of the non-conductive stuff? ) between the bulb and the fuse and control boxes. No light though.
HOWEVER:
I found that the upper fuse had gone. Replaced it, problem solved. All other electrical functions in the car work.
HOWEVER!!!
The two * wires from the fuse and control box- the purple and the black- still fail to light up the bulb.

So far, then, one may ascertain that the bulb works, the battery works, and everything else is a failure, but only with regard to the roof light, since every other function in the car works off the same loom. What can I do?
Where could the problem lie?
Actually there is one thing; in the control box the right-hand coil does not make any form of contact at all at the top, and there is a huge clearance between contacts, while the left-hand one is making contact, and has only a millimetre or two of clearance. Is this normal?

I think that's everything I feel!

All right, after all that it turns out to be fairly simple. The upper fuse was not complete! It actually had a small fracture in the filament, leading me to believe it was not a new fuse as I had thought when I dug it out but an old one I had replaced a while ago. So, problem solved... Just need to find a functional fuse. All the shops are closed today, so I'll wait...

Buy 3 there are spaces for two spares in the fuse box!

Well you tracked it down ok - how's the rest of the car build going - you've been v quiet lately - thought we had lost you!

No, not at all! School restarted recently, so I haven't had much time. I did fit the engine (it was the mount getting in the way, nothing more!) but a friend expressed interest in learning about car innards so I'm waiting until they come round this weekend until I finally put the head back on and connect everything up. I replaced all the studs, that kind of thing, did the courtesy light to fill time... It's been bothering me since I got the car, so I went into drive this weekend and sorted it. Very satisfying to actually see the light go on when I open the doors... Simple pleasures for simple minds, I suppose!
I've decided that I'll get the car professionally resprayed and all the brightwork rechromed- the engine's so nice now (and the engine bay) that I feel I should bring the whole car up to scratch. Then I'm going to replace the interior, but that's a long term prospect since it looks to be the most expensive thing I'll have done. Just out of interest, if I replace the interior with a new one (different colour, blue btw) will I lose the lovely smell? It's one of my favourite things about classics...
Photos up soon! The camera's on the blink, but I like the way it all looks so I'll stick some up when it recovers.
An update on the electric moggy. It's turned out that the cost of bringing the thing out here is quite astronomical, so unfortunately that won't happen... Anyone willing to tackle a pretty awful Moggy? Holes in the floor and enough rust to sink a ship, but the running gear's in decent condition and there's a lot of nice stuff... Maybe it could be a spares car. However, we will be buying something convertible (and European) out here... We think maybe a nice Morris convertible, because it seats four! Any other suggestions for a nice (and fairly affordable) four seater convertible? Especially English makes, we're a patriotic bunch. And preferrable no later than late Sixties... I ran through a few options but most Brit cars of that vintage are two-seat convertibles.
Well! That's a lowdown on stuff (I bet you're sorry you asked... )! It's good to be back.