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BN-1 Wiring Question

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T

TodE

Jedi Hopeful
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Well after 3 long years of restoring my 1955 BN-1 I am getting to a shorter list. I replaced the wiring harness with a new one as the previous owner replaced the orginal harness with a home made one (all the same color blue wire for everything!).
My question is, in the front of the car near the torsion bar, where the main harness attaches to the wires coming down from the trafficator connect to the main harness has a green wire w/ yellow tracer, a Green wire w/ a blue tracer and a green wire (a total of 3) plus the horn wire (brown w/ a black tracer) which I have hooked up and works fine. Which is correct by the wiring diagram.

Here is the problem, the wires coming down from the trafficator are Green w/ a red tracer, green w/ a white tracer and a green w/ a brown tracer. A brown w/ a black tracer (horns) which as I stated works fine. This is not as the wiring diagram shows. I can trial and error, but I don't want to fry something and have to replace it, if I don't have to.
The harness from the trafficator looks original as it is has a cloth covering. I looked at other Healey model wiring diagrams and nothing has that combination.
Has anybody ran across this or has the answer as to the correct match up. If not, if I trial and error can I short something out?

Thank you in advance for all your help.

Tod
 
If you are sure that the column harness is in serviceble condition then all you need is a mutimeter with a buzzer/beeper feature and ring the wires in the cloumn out based on traficator position and figure it out that way .
 
Oddly enough it looks like the new harness has the right colors and the old wires are not, now I will add that the colors on the old wires are often rather faded and hard to identify, You should be able to tell which is which coming out of the trafficator with a simple series of continuity tests (assuming the trafficator is all hooked up and working right, will get to that later). Turn the trafficator lever to the right and test the various wires coming out two at a time for continuity (ohm meter on your multimeter), two should provide continuity, the other two combinations should have none. One of the two with power is the common power feed, and the other goes back out to the turn signal, telling the lights which one should turn on based on switch position. Remember or write down which two wires work on the right switch position. Now do the same test with the left switch position, the common wire that works with both is the feed that goes to the green wire if your harness is right. The other two, well not for sure because the car has that funky turn signal control box, but if you hook them up and the turn signals are working backwards, reverse them. As long as you have the power feed right the rest is pretty easy, actually I believe you could do the whole thing by trial and error, as the trafficator switch will just complete the circuit one way or another if you hook all three wires up, but I would be more comfortable finding the power feed wire first.

As far as the trafficator itself, when you do the test I just outlined you will be testing if it is working, I would also test whether any of the old cloth covered wires have continuity to ground on the trafficator tube or somewhere on the car (don't know what you have together or apart on the car. This is a common failure area, and the wires tend to melt and burn if they short out.
 
This won't answer your question but is just a suggestion on installing any new wiring harness: check the entire system out using a small battery charger (10A or less) in place of the battery. The current limit on the charger will prevent burning up any circuits that are shorted. Otherwise, it is very easy to melt a new and expensive harness. I speak from experience on this.

Most all circuits will work on a charger, except a few heavy hitters like the starter or OD solenoid. You can certainly check out the trafficator with it.
 
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