Morris Minor Owners Club

Hello

I am making some improvements to my Morris Traveller. I wanted to ask about the dashboard underneath and behind the steering column. At the moment this is open, so you can see all the wires (see photo attached - the steering column is in the top left hand corner).
Can someone tell me if it's meant to look like this, or if I am eg missing a panel?

Thank you!

Nope most look like that although wires can be tidied away behind the glovebox- Careful it looks like you have a bare wire under there ! What year is it, as it appears to have an elephants trunk but a round Smith's heater ?

OK cool so that's normal? I am a bit worried though as they look a bit vulnerable - what do you do on yours?

She's 1969. What's an elephant's trunk?

Elephant trunk = air duct pipe into heater

The wires can be gently tucked upon the bulkhead behind / underneath the glove boxes but make sure all the connections are sound first or you will have loose wires and things not working . Check that yellow wire, it may be live and short out if it touches metal.

The elephant trunk is the heater hose which goes through the engine bay into the car to get 'fresh' air and the heater for a 1969 should have a flat front with a lever that goes up and down into one of 3 slots. It looked like an old type round one tho from the round switch I could see on the other side of the steering column. It may simply be the angle.

Brill thanks. So is the round Smiths heater not from 1969? or is the elephant's trunk the anomaly?

In fact there is also a bare bullet connector ending a purple wire on the left of the picture as well. I wonder what is not working.?

if it is a round heater it would be an anomaly. If you post a more visible picture of the dash I can make a more educated guess.

Thank you - that's really helpful. My heater is one of those with the flat front and 3 slots so I think it must be original.

As you're being so kind, could I ask one more thing? One of the wires in that mess had a switch attached to it (see photo).
I've got no idea what this does. Have you got something similar in the same place?

This would be the correct one

It may be a kill switch, an anti theft device.If you switch it on it should prevent the engine from starting in some way.

The heater looks exactly correct for a car of that age. The extra switch could be for any accessory that has been fitted in the past - reversing light, fog light, one of those stick-on heated rear window things....... It appears to only have one wire connected though?
I agree, there does seem to be one original bullet connection - possibly from the indicator switch? - which has become disconnected. Does the horn work correctly?
The white or cream coloured wires hanging down don't look original either and look untidy so it would be worth checking where they run to and having a tidy-up but generally it looks fairly present and correct!

I use spiral cable warp at work, great for tidying up cabling. Makes it easy to then tie up out of sight. Shrink wrapping connectors is always good as well.

That's really helpful - thank you guys!! I'm fairly new at this so it's rather scary - v reassuring to have such nice people to ask - and to know that broadly everything is in the right place!

The plan is to tidy everything up and make sure things are connected as they should be (I think the purple one is the wire for the horn) but it's a slow process as I am trying to make sense of the wiring diagram in the workshop manual - for a non-engineer, it takes a while (but the colours do help!)

Thank you again!

You can use adhesive plastic pads which stick onto the metal under the dash.
These pads take a cable tie so you can effectively lift one or more cables up under the base of the dash and out of sight.
Another method is to drill two holes in the under side of the dash at each side of the car and run a fairly tight bungee cord like a washing line across the dash base. You can then lift up the wires and cable tie them neatly to the bungee cord.
As mentioned above make sure all the connections are tight and inspect closely once the wires are cable tied. Works for me!