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Constant hot wire

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AUSMHLY

AUSMHLY

Yoda
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Hi Guys,

I'm just finishing up installing a courtesy light set up. Look for this post soon.
I'm searching for a constant hot wire in my BJ8.

I've tapped into the brown wire going to the headlight switch. That toggle switch is causing a problem with the courtesy light circuit board, when I activate the headlights.

Any suggestions for another constant hot can I give a try.

Thank you,
Roger
 
Roger

I believe the brown wire for the radio is a permanent live and should have an inline fuse to feed your radio (if fitted) or the brown to the ignition switch (factory did this to feed cigar lighter). At the end of the day the permanent lives are the browns, whick link from the regulator to headlight switch, radio, they are all fed via the brown from the starter solenoid.

Easiest then is probably from the back of the ignition switch!

cheers Andy

old 'rusty' the bj8
www.austin-healey3000.com
 
Roger,
I guess Andy covered it, but couldn't you use the brown or brown with blue wire terminal on the ignition (NOT THE WHITE). If you can get to it, you could run a wire through the firewall and connect it to the fuse block where the brown wires enter.

Lin
 
Hi Roger,
Are you turning the headlights on while the engine is off? With the draw on the battery, you may not have enough voltage to run the circuit board, especially if there are digital ICs on board. If that is the case, it won't matter which brown wire you choose, you'll still be dealing with inadequate volts. Maybe the first question I should ask is what problems are you having? How did you tap into the brown wire at the light switch?
 
Lin said:
but couldn't you use the brown or brown with blue wire terminal on the ignition (NOT THE WHITE).
Click to expand...

Hi Lin,
Roger got a blue Healey with brown wires, but no brown/blue wires. The later wiring harness changed. :crazyeyes:
 
I think it's the other way round Lin. Roger's and my car be younger. When they get older, a little blue will creep into those brown lines.
 
Hey guys, thank you everyone for your thoughts.

One thing I have narrowed it down to, is no problem when the car is not running.

Now I'm totally confused. I can't seem to locate where the intermittent problem is coming from.

When the car is running, the courtesy lights will come one, intermittently when the parking lights and the gauge lights are on. When the headlight and the gauge lights. When just the headlights. Sometimes when the headlights, gauge lights and then when I use the directional will trigger them on. Then there are times when all of the above happens, and they don't come on.

I charged the battery last night, but that didn't make any difference.

I'm beginning to think it's the circuit board? Not liking a current flux? Or maybe a wire that's not getting a good contact?

But, why does it work fine when the car is not running?

I'm sure soon enough, I'll be posting the...My Bad, I did't do this or this was loose or what was I thinking.
 
Roger
I assume you are negative ground? It may be worth running a seperate earth wire to the circuit board to make sure this is ok, as you may be seeing the intermittent when the earth path is made ie turning on headlights or activating flashers etc.
 
Hi Andy,

Yes I am negative ground. I have a separate negative wire going to ground.
What confuses me is there is no problem when activating headlights, turn signal, anything, when the car is not running.

I have 3 lights hooked up to the circuit board.
The one over the switch panel is a neon, which has it's own magic box to make it work. Photo attached. You'll see the magic white box lying on the drivers floor.
The other two lights, one in each foot well, are one watt LED's. Photo attached.

Today I will spend some more time under the dash.

I will run a wire straight from the positive of the battery and see how that works.

I will disconnect the Neon and just run the LED's and vise versa.

I believe that these lights pull very little power vs. incandescent. So I thought that would not be a possible problem?

Don't you just love intermittent problems. Certainly teaches me persistence and patience. How thankful am I that I have some help here. I look at this as another Healey challenge.

Cheers,
Roger
 
AUSMHLY said:
But, why does it work fine when the car is not running?
Click to expand...
My first suspect would be the door triggers. There may be some vibration causing an intermittent connection depending on how you mounted them. I'd take them out of the equation and try it again. The problem may have nothing to do with what lights happen to be on at the moment. One exception to that is the turn signals, if the courtesy lights flash <span style="font-weight: bold">with</span> the turn signals.
 
Hey Greg,

Good idea. I'll remove the wire's to the door pins.
The door pin has a long throw open, when compressed. About half an inch. See photo. Compression is about the lenght of the black plastic. I doubt that is the problem. But hey, I'll try anything. And twice!

Currently, the lights do not flash with the turn signal, when that happens. The lights just go on, when the turn signal lever is applied. Again, intermittent.
 
Roger,
I believe the next thing for your Healey should be an espresso machine. Just think of the money you would save not having to drive thru a Starbucks.
Actually, I am very impressed with all the things you've done to it.
 
I found the trouble maker.....I think.

I ran a wire from the battery to the courtesy box. Drove around, headlights on, off, gauge lights on and off and used the turn signals. Everything worked great. OK, I'll now try and run a wire from the fuse box to the courtesy box. Oh, what's this I see? Now when did that wire come out.

I crimped the connector and put the wire back. Did it fix my courtesy problem....I think so. I drove around, flipping the toggles like my inner child would do all day.

Now I'm sitting here looking at the wiring diagram. It appears that a solid red wire, which is the color that was disconnected, does indeed go to the light switch and to the panel light switch. Go figure.

But wait, there's more.
Question, why were my headlights, parking lights, light switch and panel light working OK? One would think that with that wire off, something would not work.

As I said in one of my prior posts here, it may turn out to be something simple. Like a wire that's not connected.

Thank you everyone for your advise.
My bad, I did not check every wire associated to the light switch.

Cheers,
Roger
 
shorn said:
Roger,
I believe the next thing for your Healey should be an espresso machine. Just think of the money you would save not having to drive thru a Starbucks.
Actually, I am very impressed with all the things you've done to it.
Click to expand...

Shorn, I like the way you think!
You think just like Greg!
You think I've done some neat-o stuff? Sit back and admire what our friend Greg McGuyver has come up with!

It was you Greg, right?
My bad if I gave you credit for someone else's creative thinking.

Cheers,
Roger
 
Roger
Looking at your photo of the disconnected red wire, it will not be the feed from the light switch which links into the panel switch.

As your photo shows it is the double connector on the bulkhead your will have lost either your rear tail lights, or one of the front clear running lights (side lights in uk). I suspect you will have looked at 1 side of your front side lights and not noticed the other was not working as they are each fed seperately from the double connector. If you are still having problems I would assume the loading of the l.e.d's is not enough for the electronics to switch, trying adding another 5 watt standard bulb to test.

But if your ok now just switch the coffee maker on!, is it also wired to the light switch?

cheers Andy
 
That red wire looks like the one that goes back to the rear lights. Odd that would result in your problems, but if they go away, who am I to question. :laugh:
 
Good thing I stated:
I found the trouble maker....I think.

I thought this was too easy.
This is an intermittent problem. So it decided to let me think I fixed it. Should have known.

Good news, my inner child gets to play with the toggles some more.

Roger
 
I think if you don't solve the problem by nightfall, you should just sell the car. You have 2 hours, 10 minutes.
 
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