Cool wiring woes

[Skullbuter]

Finally got my rat on the road again but I was fiddling the other day and we all know what happens when you fiddle...

So basically what’s going on is as follows: I am not getting power to my coil from my ignition switch. The red wire that attaches to the positive end of my coil gets no power when I slap a multimeter on it with the ignition on. As it disappears into the wiring harness, I believe it is spliced somewhere along the line so that it is not a nice easily identifiable red wire when it comes out on the other end and goes to the fuse box. The Haynes bible I own isn’t very clear on which fuse this goes either and I’m having trouble tracing it.

what I have done is earthed the red wire by the coil and probed for a short to earth, and found what seems to be the wire I’m looking for. WhatI believe happened is I may have disconnected it and inadvertently reconnected it in the wrong place while cleaning the lugs since there are a variety of other gremlins I need to work out.

Any help positively identifying and connecting this wire in the correct place would be greatly appreciated.

The good but unrelated news is that I got my brake lights working

[Skullbuter]

Should probably add that it started just fine before I decided to fiddle with wires

[retrovan]

If its your ignition to coil wire, it will not go through a fuse but come off the live side of the fuse,.

This is done so the car will not die due to a fuse blowing.

All other circuits do go through fuses, but not that one.

If we talking of the same wire that is.

Herman

[Skullbuter]

If its your ignition to coil wire, it will not go through a fuse but come off the live side of the fuse,.

This is done so the car will not die due to a fuse blowing.

All other circuits do go through fuses, but not that one.

If we talking of the same wire that is.

Herman

Great stuff.

I fiddled a bit more and have now discovered that my old bug is one finicky devil, one of the previous owners was rather creative with the wiring.

You are indeed correct that the wire in question comes off the hot side of the fuse. However it seems to split at the end where it goes onto the fuse box. If I am not mistaken, I hear some sort of solenoid clicking in the vicinity of the left side of the boot area where the harness goes through into the cabin. I had both terminals on the number 11 hot side and when I moved the one to 12 I heard the click. There is now voltage going to the coil and she starts right up.

This is probably not the end of my wiring woes, I still have 2 front indicators that don’t work and for some odd reason the no. 1 fuse pops when I turn on my headlights without really affecting them. The indicators at the back work just fine though. Not to mention the fuse that pops when I turn my hazards on, can’t really remember which one that was. I was actually fiddling to try and figure out why the fuses were popping when I caused the initial problem. No. 12 would also go if I left my ignition on but it seems to have stopped doing that for now.

Thank you for the diagram. It should help me along the way. At this stage, I’m a bit scared to take her out on the road until all of these things are sorted out. It’s a veritable cop magnet so I need to have all my ducks in a row unless I want to spend money I could have used fixing these niggles to pay fines

[Tony Z]

I'd check around the wiring on the fuse block to make sure that you arent touching the chassis with any live wires.
Also check (for your lights especially) for broken insulation where the wires pass through the body - its likely that the grommets are long gone and the wiring tubes are also gone.

That relay you hear at the back it likely an addition that many people do (myself included) to take the starting load off the ignition switch and put it onto a relay - the switch lasts longer if you do this.
google "hard start relay"

[fig]

Also check that the park lights haven't been wired incorrectly. If the power wire is connected to the earth you'll blow the park light fuse every time you turn on the lights.

[73type2]

Whenever I get a car with messed up wiring I get the wiring diagram and disconnect all connections at the fuse box. I then connect the circuits one by one to find out which one is problematic, checking the wiring against the schematic.