Morris Minor Owners Club

hi can someone tell me how to install a cigarette lighter in penny, i think im gonna need a sat nav for next week

Is Penny the convertible in your signature? If so, you have a very handy power source under the right side dash. You should find the leads that would be used to power the interior light on a saloon. One purple and one black and always live.

Alternatively... take a live feed from the live side of the fuse box (remove fuses and see which terminals are live). Use 15A or 20A wire and run it through a 10A inline fuse, and continue the wire to somewhere under the dash where you connect it to the centre terminal of the lighter socket. The other terminal should be wired to ground (the body/dash metal).

There are 2 fuses in the fuse box - one is switched by the ignition, the other is permanent live - choose one or the other depending on what you want. Many cigarrette lighter sockets these days have inbuilt lighting so a switched live cound be better.

In the well known parts shops, they have a chav section with gadgets in. There you'll find multi socket cigarrette lighter extension leads (with plug). If you cut the plug off, this gives you most of what you need and is usually far cheaper than just buying the single socket in the 'normal' section.
The wiring on a plug and socket extension will be 10A wire as it has a 10A fuse in the plug. Personally I prefer higher rated wire for extra protection. Also thicker wire gives less voltage drop if you do use a lot of current. The 10A wire in a standard 12v extension should be perfectly safe - otherwise they wouldn't sell it ;-)

One with a bracket like this:
http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/Cigar-Cigarette-L ... 1|294%3A50
Saves drilling a big hole or having the socket dangling on a wire.

thanks for your help guys, got up to the national and back safely thanks to the sat nav, it always put me at ease. we cut the end off a ciggarette lighter in the end, thanks for the tip rayofleamington, we did it the morning we were leaving the boyfriend managed to get it done in about ten minutes, i might be able to persuede him to help me with the car more often ;)

Didn't see your car there.....

Vikki says " boyfriend managed to get it done in about ten minutes " - well it does say in another thread that ' Morris Minor owners do it slowly ' !

boyfriend isn't the owner

I saw your car at the national, you'd struggle to miss it

yep was parked with all the other minors, i missed some cars i wanted to see aswell just didnt spot them.

hi ray, just going to maplins, just wondering what sort of connectors to buy for patching into the fuse box as per your post? thanks.

A warning:

If you own an MM, they are wired positive earth. The + wire is connected to the center terminal of the socket and - wire to the side terminal. The socket should be insulated from the body metal. I used a plastic bracket behind the dashboard "grille". I did not want to chance my GPS recognizing reversed polarity.

Good advice but remember ALL Morris Minors of any age were originally Positive Earth. So, check if yours has been converted to Negative Earth first, regardles of model.....

Rather than mess about 'isolating' the thing - which will only end in grief/fire/burned out sat nav one day, I would swap the polarity of the car to the now standard -ve earth.

xpress wrote:hi ray, just going to maplins, just wondering what sort of connectors to buy for patching into the fuse box as per your post? thanks.

You want an insulated female Lucar crimp connector, something like this:
http://www.maplin.co.uk/Module.aspx?ModuleNo=42728
Probably the blue size, depending on how thick the wire you're using is.

You'll need a crimping tool too if you don't already have one.

ah ok, do the female lucars go to a male lucar in the fusebox? i will get some of these and fix it up soon. just glad that she's starting up first time and running well now.

bmcecosse wrote:Rather than mess about 'isolating' the thing - which will only end in grief/fire/burned out sat nav one day, I would swap the polarity of the car to the now standard -ve earth.

Bit of a thread hijack here but yesterday I read somewhere that the reason that cars were positive earth was that it stopped the electrode furring up (can't remember which one furs normally). Anyone know if that's true?

I believe it's to do with reducing the tendency to RUST!

hi there.

i can't see a space on the fuse box and i see

AA EE DD etc

what one is permanent live?

regarding the space on the fuse box for a lucar connector, what shall i do, do they sell lucar splitters? please advise.

This may sound like a silly question, but where can I get a cigarette lighter from? Can I just buy one from Ebay or do I need a special one (for a special car!)?

Ebay is fine.
The cigarette lighter will take it's polarity from the car and so the car must be negative earth or anything plugged into the cigarette lighter will be toast.

Look for one that can be fixed to a panel.