No power to 3/4 fusebox, ignition OK, stray wire - any ideas

[mariononslow20]

Hi, my car has 2 fuseboxes with 2 fuses each. Symptom, no power to either side of 3 of the 4 fuses, fuses themselves look OK.

The only fuse that works is the horn/interior light one, and the car starts and runs fine. No wiper, heater, indicators etc. The background is that I had problems with the wiper motor and tested power to it when I removed the unit, all OK. Next time I come to check it, prior to fitting a replacement wiper motor, no power.

Under the dash all seems OK, the ignition switch circuit is fine. BUT there is a stray red/white wire with a spade connector coming out of the wiring loom. For all I know it is redundant, I cannot find where it was connected to - if it ever was. But it does look suspicious!

Does anyone have an inkling as to what has happened and how I can put it right?

[bmcecosse]

Well if it has two fuse boxes it's a non-standard wiring arrangement - so it's anyone's guess whats going on now ! What colour wire feeds the 3 fuses?

[mariononslow20]

[frame][/frame][frame][/frame]

OK here's pix of the 2 fuse boxes, the right hand fuse is fine but no juice going through the other 3. And a pic of the mystery errant wire under the dash..........

[mogbob]

A White / Red wire on the " original" wiring scheme should start at the Solenoid and the go to the No 1 terminal on the Ignition switch. ( Do you have a White / Red white attached , in addition to the loose one ? Where does the loose White / Red wire emerge from your loom ? )

The interior light and horn are fed by a different fuse to the wiper, heater and indicators.
The feed for power to the fuse ( supplying the wiper/ heater/ indicators ) should be a white wire ( one of two ) coming from terminal No 2 on the ignition switch.

It sounds as though your two fuse boxes are the result of "splitting" the ignition controlled supply ( one Brown wire and one White wire on an original loom ) to the car.
Hope this gives you some inspiration and let us know what you find out.
Bob

[mogbob]

The second picture I think ? shows two metal terminals inside the plastic insulating sleeve.
There's no White / Red wire exiting "left ".

REMEMBER the White / Red wire from the Solenoid ( Entering right in your photo is permanently LIVE whilst the battery is connected ..so remove the negative battery wire before delving !

I think you will find a loose White / Red wire emerging from the ignition switch, under the dash with a bare end, i.e the metal terminal not attached to it.The vehicle rewiring was not secure enough at this joint.

If I'm right you will need to slip off the plastic connector cover and remove the metal female ( ? )connector from the joint.Remember to slip the plastic sleeve back over the wire first and then reattach the metal connector.If you are lucky you may be able to use the old one.Solder and or crimp it to the wire for a good electrical connection.Use a new female ( ? ) terminal if the old one is unuseable.Fix the joint together and then reconnect the battery and test everything is working.

Bob

[mariononslow20]

Thanks, Bob, well spotted! I will renew my efforts to find that loose red/white wire with no terminal end - I thought I had looked pretty thoroughly, and report back. Bit cold out there at the moment so there may be a slight delay.....

[bmcecosse]

Brown wires should be live all the time - directly from the battery side of the solenoid... White wires become live when the Ignition is switched on. So - which wires are showing 'live' -and which are dead with the Ignition on? The white/red is a red herring I think......... Do you still haver a dynamo? If so - check the A and A1 terminals on the regulator - are they both live ??

[beero]

I agree with BMCecosse that the white/red is probably a red herring.
I think everyone is missing the fact that you say in the first post that it starts and runs okay so the whites must be live for it to run.
Also you say the horn and interior lights work so the purples and the browns must be okay.
If the wipers, heater and indicators don't work the the problem is with the greens or the fuses that feeds them.
Maybe you have a problem with your meter or test lamp that is giving you false readings.
A better photo showing the bottom wire colours may help. It looks like just browns and whites but I can't see if they are just looped from one fusebox to the other.
Do you know what the blue and the red wire feed as these are not standard.

[mogbob]

bmcecosse/beero
I have no disagreement with what you have said / suggested whatsoever.
There were two parts to the original question.
Eliminating or reconnecting the stray single ( maybe two ) loose White / Red wire is simply part of the process in solving the problems raised.
We're all aiming at a satisfactory outcome of the problem.
Happy New Year.
Bob

[ian.mcdougall]

That wire connector looks to be too modern for a morris and I cannot find a white/red on a minor wiring diagram unless I missed it. It almost looks like a wire from a modern radio , I see what looks like a speaker wire in the photo does the car have a modern radio fitted and is this wire from that, as modern radios have a lot of wires that may not need to be connected eg electric aerial, constant live, display dim on sidelamps, etc

[mariononslow20]

Thanks for your contributions, here's an update + some more/better pics

- Repeat, all 4 fuses tested, 3 have no current with ign on. Meter OK and working. Car starts and runs fine. No indicator, heater, wipers

Additional info

- Red/white wire has only a female connector. I cannot find any evidence of where it might have run to, if anywhere. I suspect this wire is a red (and white) herring.
- There is another red/white wire running to back of speedo.
- The car has an alternator
- The green oil light does not light up when ign turned on, ign red light is on
- I have found a stray connector, similar to those on back of speedo. Green wires to it
- Ignition switch is OK and correctly wired. Incidentally one of the white wires looks a bit iffy - I had a burnt out wire to the pump some years ago which may have caused this. Although it isn't great, I don't think its connected with this problem[frame][/frame][frame][/frame][frame][/frame]

[Chipper]

I agree with the post above, that the modern red/white is probably a stereo wire, probably to activate an electric aerial (if fitted); you can test it by using a multimeter on 0-20V volts range or a 12V test lamp and first switch on the ignition, then the stereo (if fitted), whereupon it should light, and switch off when you switch the stereo off.

The stray green connector is for a speedo warning lamp, and should have a 12V 2.2W MES screw-in light bulb fitted - these are available from the likes of Maplin, etc.

I would also be investigating the rather frayed/burnt out(?) white wiring to the terminal block above it, as that could be a fire hazard waiting to happen!

[chesney]

Have you tried swapping the fuses over between the fuse boxes? Just because fuses look ok, doesn't necessarily mean they are.

[Trickydicky]

The fuse box on the left is fed from the r/h one, so that says to me that whatever is fed from the l/h fuse box is a "extra" or the wiring has been modified to provide extra protection to the whatever is connected to l/h fuses.
(The brown and white wires at the bottom look to create the link)
I would as Chesney says check the fuses with a meter as they could be failed. You could have blown fuses when removing or reconnecting the wiper motor.

[mariononslow20]

Hi Chesney and Richard. Perhaps you'd put me right if I am doing this wrong here, but I am putting my meter probes across the 2 brass terminals top and bottom of the fuse reasoning that the current if there is one, goes through these. With the working pair - it does. With the 3 non working sets, it shows nothing.

Marion

[Trickydicky]

Best way to test the fuses is to take them out, set the meter to ohms or if it has it, to the buzzer setting and check the fuses with the probes. If you have replacement fuses just try swoping the ones that are not working for the replacements to try and prove the fuses are dead.

[bmcecosse]

Errrr NO ! That's very wrong way to use the meter - except on ohms to check if the fuse is blown.... You set 20 volts DC and put one probe (black) to a good clean earth - and the other (red) then probes each terminal in turn to detect 12 volts hopefully.... I suspect indeed you simply have a blown fuse , or two...

[beero]

Okay, so there is your problem. Set the meter to 20v, put the red probe on the fuse terminal and clip the black lead to a good earth to get a voltage reading. Test the bottom first, brown always live, white live with ignition on. Then test at the top, purple should be live if the fuse is okay, green should be live with ignition on if the fuse is okay.
Testing the way you were doing gives a reading only if the fuse is gone so going back to your original post, the fuse that gave a reading is the blown fuse.

Going back to the white/red, in the first lot of pics, it looked like white/red (that is mostly white with a thin red stripe)
In the second pics there are some red/whites (mostly red with a thin white stripe) Please do not confuse the two, they are totally different. Red/white is used for dash illumination, white/red is for ignition to solenoid on later cars with key start.
Do you have an earlier car with pull starter with a loom for a later car perhaps?

[beero]

Should have read page 2 first. You two boys beat me to it! DOH!

[mariononslow20]

Hi everyone, thank you all so much for your help and patience with this. I was indeed measuring the current incorrectly and the one fuse that I thought was working, was the only one that wasn't! In my defence the fuse 'looked' perfect. Fuse replaced, all now fine and dandy

So the stray wires etc were nothing to do with it, although the exercise wasn't wasted because I now know that there is a v dodgy damaged white wire running from the ignition which needs replacing.

Once again, many thanks - I do feel a bit stupid now but at least I have the humility to acknowledge it.

Marion