• Hi Guest!
    If you appreciate British Car Forum and our 25 years of supporting British car enthusiasts with technical and anicdotal information, collected from our thousands of great members, please support us with a low-cost subscription. You can become a supporting member for less than the dues of most car clubs.
    There are some perks with a member upgrade!
    **Upgrade Now**
    (PS: Subscribers don't see this gawd-aweful banner
Tips
Tips

Bugeye ignition light still on- help please

Share this page

I

ichthos

Darth Vader
Country flag
Offline
Without the key in the ignition, the ignition light stays on. Luckily I have a cut off for the battery. I replaced the brushes in the generator, and there was no change. I did put in the wiring harness, but so far that is the only odd thing happening. Any ideas on what I can do?
Kevin
 
I had the wrong drawing..
got the right one now.

Dynamo output, yellow, to "D" terminal of voltage regualtor.
Comes out of "D" terminal, straight to "IGN" light, then on to the Lighting and Ignition Switch "W", to the fuse unit, and to the stabilizer.

Disconnect wires at "D" terminal of voltage regulator, tell me if you have power on either, and with them disconnected, is the light on?

Tell me if you have power on the "D" terminal of the Voltage Regulator with wires disconnected.
Before we dive into ignition switch, I want to confirm the problem isn't here.

Dave
 
I won't be home until around 7 this evening. I am not totally sure what you are asking me to do, but I am sure it will make more sense once the car is in front of me. I will try what you said and repost.
Thanks,
Kevin
 
Kevin,

I think he means, looking down on the control box you will see these terminals:


|--E--D--F--A--A1--|

Take the wire off the D terminal. With the wire disconnected, is the light still on?


With the D wire disconnected and the ignition switch off, do you have voltage at the ignition switch terminal that the white wires connect to? There should be three white wires.

Oh, one last thing. Are you sure you have the white wires on the correct terminal of the ignition switch?

Best,
Charlie
 
Good diagnostics... Have you got a good diagram, Kevin? And even a cheap VOM. You can track down ALL the various voltages present (or not) and switch configuration with those two tools.
 
When I disconnected the two wires at the "D" terminal the ignition light went out. I took my light tester and hooked it up to the negative battery terminal. I then touched the test light individually to each of the two yellow wires while they were disconnected - both times the tester lit up. With the tester hooked up to the negative terminal, I touched the "D" terminal and the light did not light up. What does this mean?

I only found a terminal with two white wires connected to it on the ingnition switch. With the two "D" terminal wires disconnected, and the ignition switch off, my test light lit up when I touched the wire where the two white wires were connected. As far as your wondering if I have the white wires hooked up to the correct terminal, I thought I had the white wires connected correctly, but I am not sure. It was a lot easier looking at things when my dash was not in the car yet.

Kevin
 
If the ignition light is on when the key is off, it has to be miswired, most likely to the ignition switch. There doesn't seem to be much else that is possible.
 
Kevin,
Where I mentioned three white wires, you probably only have two. The third was originally for the cigarette lighter. I am not sure the repro wiring harnesses have it.

Let's see if you have the ignition switch wired correctly through a process of elimination.

With the key off and the light switch off, you should not get continuity through any of the terminals.

With the key on and the light switch off, you should get continuity through two of the terminals and none of the others. Figure out which two terminals those are.

Now try swapping the wires on those two terminals (trade the two white ones and the brown + blue one) and see if the ignition light turns on and off with the key.

Yes, it is a real pain when you have to work on these things with the dash in place, particularly if you have screws on your ignition switch and not push on terminals.

I always say nothing on the Bugeye is worth doing in the first place unless it is worth doing over at least once if not several times.

Charlie
 
That's where I wanted you to be.
If you have power on the ignition light lead, there are three wires on the switch, right?
White to light, white to stabilizer, and the other to fusebox?

Powewr in on opposite side of light/ignition switch as a brown/white?

Either the switch is bad or the ignition light wire is connected to the power lead, and not the switched leg.

Easy fix, just look.
Remove the three wires from the switch, check for voltage.
I will bet you have power to the switched side, along with the ignition lamp lead, and ignition load on the other.
Power to one, load and lamp to the other terminal.

Dave
 
Interesting about the extra white wire that wasn't included in my new harness - I was wondering how to hook up a cigar lighter and now I know where it will attach. As far as the switch, there are four terminals. I presently have the double white going to the center. There is a double red, a single blue, and a heavy single brown with a blue stripe connected to the perimeter of the switch. The switch is new, and like most problems on my car is more than likely by me not doing something correctly. Would the center terminal be the power terminal? If so, which colored wire should go to that terminal?
 
The BIG BROWN wire is power ~in~... white is iggy, red for lights interior, blue for headlamps, brown/blue is something I can't see on any of my references.
 
If I remember, the brown power wire comes from the A1 terminal of the Voltage Regulator.
It goes to a pole on the light/ign switch all by itself, no other wires.

Now, hang on a minute.
You connected the test light to the negative terminal...is this still a positive ground?
All bets are off unless you are earthed on the clip of the test light.
Please confirm you grounded the light (like, motor block).
 
I think he converted to negative ground. On the Bugeye one brown comes from the battery to terminal A and continues to the fusebox to provide power to the horn. Brown/blue comes from terminal A1 and provides power to the switch. Blue goes to the headlights, red to the running lights and gauge lights, etc.

Unfortunately Kevin, I don't have a switch in front of me--my car is 1000 miles away. But you definitely have the right wires on there. The question is if they are on the right terminals.

It is getting very late here on the East Coast, and I am getting very sleepy and probably less logical. Let me ask you one more question. Do you have to turn your key in order to turn on your running/headlights? You should not.

If you do, I think you need to swap the ignition (white wires) with your power wire (brown/blue ).

With the key off, when you turn the knob to the left one click, your running lights and gauge lights should come on. Two clicks to the left, the headlights should come on. No key required.

For my cigar lighter I put a terminal on a new white wire and simply added that to the same terminal carrying the other white two wires.

I'll check you in the morning.
Charlie
 
You all do know that with your hand you can remove and replace the ign switch on a Bugeye. Not a deal, now you can see all the wires and change and check connections easly. Might even take 10 seconds.
 
Yeah, but now that we are at the ign/light switch, Kevin has to get it out.

As far as the load wire colour from V/R A-1 to Ign/Light switch, my diagram has a fold right there, and it looks like maybe NU (blue/brown), or NW (brown/white), or maybe something unreadable.

I have thought since this all started on another thread that the ignition switch was mis-wired, but we had to get to this point to know.
 
Hi Kevin,
Here is a picture I just took of the back side of a spare ignition switch with the terminals labeled.
Good luck!
Scott in CA
 

Attachments

  • 22696.jpg
    22696.jpg
    38.8 KB · Views: 250
Say fellows, here is a fresh copy of the Bugeye wiring diagram that should lay to rest the issue of whether the wire supplying power to the ignition switch is brown with a blue tracer.

It is brown/blue, consistent with the wiring harness I just installed this summer. So, he has that right.

The Bugeye ignition switch is held in place by a springy wire clamp that I did personally did not find to that easy to install and remove, particularly once the dash is in.

Kevin, I might advise you find an alternative to that clamp if you are having trouble getting it off and back on. Until I rewired mine with the dash out I had simply wrapped electrical tape around the switch and jammed it into the hole. It wasn't going anywhere.

Be sure and disconnect the battery before you remove the switch or you will get sparks when the power terminal bangs into the dashboard, which it will.

Charlie
 
Charlie said:
Be sure and disconnect the battery before you remove the switch or you will get sparks when the power terminal bangs into the dashboard,<span style="font-weight: bold"> <span style="font-style: italic">which it will</span></span>.
Click to expand...

Amen!!
 
I am taking a little break at work, and will only get about an hour tonight at best to work on my car. I finally did look at my wiring diagram and did figure out what the different wires did - thanks for the confirmation. To answer your questions, my car is negatively grounded. I have the negative terminal strap going to the body. I did hook the test lead to the negative terminal in the battery when I tested. I figured that was the best ground I could get- is this still ok? From what all of you have said, I am pretty sure I have wired the ignition switch incorrectly. Scott, when you took the picture of your switch, would it be in the same position as I would see it under the dash? My switch does not look like that exactly from the back, but I am pretty sure my brown and white wires are reversed. I can't remember where I hooked up the blue and red wires. Can I cause any damage if I hook them up wrong as I try to staighten this out? I do have a fuse between the battery and brown wire just in case. I do always unhook the battery every time I work on something. I am gettting a lot of use of the cut off switch. I can't answer some of your questions until I get home. I will report back tonight after I have had a chance to apply what all of you have suggested. Thanks again for all of your help.
Kevin
 
Back of the ign/light switch has 5 screws marked as follow.

1G, white wire

H, blue wire

A, brown and blue wire

S, red wire

See your friendly Hynes manual or your orginal shop manual.

I understand that a hose clamp will work to hold the switch in place if you loose the wire.
 
Back
Top