Morris Minor Owners Club

My car lost all power whilst I was driving it. RAC couldnt find what was wrong.
So I hotwired it, so that I could get it home, by running a lead from the battery to the ignition coil.
Works fine whilst hotwired, but there is no power to the ignition, headlights, brakelights or indicators, any ideas please?

Hi,

How did you start the car, does the key still work to start car or did you use the starting handle or do you have a push starter solenoid.

If you lost everything including all the lights, then if could be the main power feed. Headlights do not go through the starter switch, so these should still work if all power feed wires are OK. If you used solenoid to start car then the main cable from battery should be OK. Check the smaller cable from the starter solenoid to the control box and wires and fuses at fuse box.

Any information you can provide following the checks above will assist other to help with clearing this problem.

Thank you
it had been started by key and running with no problems until it just died on me

the key will start the car whilst hotwired, but i can only turn the engine off by disconnecting the hotwiring, also, the dash light comes on when the car is hotwired, but ignition is turned off.

While hotwired, all functions should resume, no? As the coil feed is linked to the ignition live side of the switch?
Check the feed to the ignition switch (from A1 terminal of regulator as standard), should be blue on brown wire. Or potentially lucar connector has slipped off the back of the ignition switch, slacken two screws either side of speedo to remove it and investigate (I advise removing a battery cable hen investigating). Assuming a post-63 minor here?

Thank you. Do you know what colour wire is the permanent live at the ignition switch, and where it is fed from please?

Yes, as posted above. The permanent live for the switch comes from the A1 terminal (as standard) on the regulator and is brown with a blue stripe.

Thank you

Look at the wiring diagram at the head of this section for wire colours.. Your systems must be fine - for the car to run, your 'hot wire' must have back fed the fuel pump, and the key start must also have taken power from the back feed. If it's not simply wire off at the switch - check the link on the back of the Regulator box - they sometimes corrode through... Quick fix is to hotwire between the A and A1 terminals.

Thank you

should the petrol pump have a permanent live feed?

No permanent live, ignition live feed.

The petrol pump is fed with a white wire from the ignition switch. so it should tick/pump when ign on only.

Sorry to be pedantic, but it's fed from the non fused side of the ignition live side of the fusebox.

Chesney is correct the wire is physically connected to the fuse box with the other white wires, on the fed side of the fuse

The belive the left thick white wire in the fed from ign switch and petrol pump is one of the thinner white wires on the right.the other white wire goes to the coil
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That's how I understand it Andy.
Some may think it unnecessary to say, but it was unclear from the post that although it does run from the switch, it runs from the fusebox, and not from the back of the switch, for the ease of the poster understanding/locating it...

Should i be connecting all four cables fom A and A1 together, as I connnected A to A, and A1 to A1, and the ignition light came on, without the key being in the ignition. Also, it seems that the headlights are working again, when the car is hotwired, I'm sure that wasnt the case before.

Should i be connecting all four cables fom A and A1 together, as I connnected A to A, and A1 to A1, and the ignition light came on, without the key being in the ignition. Also, it seems that the headlights are working again, when the car is hotwired, I'm sure that wasnt the case before.

Thank you all, i will try again tomorrow, im probably thinking that it is more complicated than it actually is