4 replies to this topic

[Purple Tom]

Hi,

Just doing my Vauxhall conversion so thought its about time I had a look at the Mini wiring, to make sure its all ok. All seems good, but I have a couple of questions on some aspects of it:

1 - The Mini alternator has 3 wires. The main charging wire (brown), the alternator warning light (brown and yellow), and another wire, which is brown and blue. This brown and blue one goes back to the starter solenoid, what exactly is it for?

2 - All the warning lamps on the Mini (charging, oil pressure, main beam and indicator warning lamps) appear to go through the voltage regulator. I'm not going to be using the Mini instrument panel - instead I'm using the Smiths Telemetrix electronic speedo and tacho. I'm going to make my own third 'gauge' with all the warning lamps included - will I need to get a voltage regulator for these or can I just wire them to the relevant ancillaries?

Think thats it for the moment.

TIA

Tom

[pikey7]

1: no real idea! i guess its something to do with switching the alternator on, but I don't know really!

2: smiths instruments work off a stabilised 10V source, hence the need for the stabiliser. 99.9% of aftermarket instruments (inluding the telemetrix range) work off an unstabilised 12v source as they have all the necessary regulation circuits built in.

[Dan]

Brown and brown/blue are both essentially the same in this instance. They each carry 1/2 of the total load, why one of them is brown/blue I have no idea. I'll check the colour code when I get a minute but rest assured they are both alternator output. The brown/yellow is as you suggest alternator warning/sensing.

The dash warning lamps don't use the stabilised source, don't worry about it. Just plain old 12 volts.

For warning lamps built into a gauge why not use the warning lamp cluster from a Triumph? These are already built into a 52mm gauge body and have the various symbols on the front. Speedy Cables could easily recondition one for you, fitting excellent Telemetrix bezel at the same time.

Or you could use the Bright-6 cluster which is fairly cool or some of the alloy symbol lamps available which look very similar to Telemetrix. I know you probably have all your plans ready, just offering some more options.

[ed4ran]

I like the Bright-6 lights
Think they would go well with the telemetrix gauges

[Purple Tom]

Thanks for the advice, I've got some chrome rimmed warning lights lined up from Vehicle Wiring Products, and Speedy Cables are supplying me with a Telemetrix bezel to build my warning cluster into - its 100mm so the Triumph one wouldn't be suitable, thanks though.

Thanks for the re-assurance on the wiring too, I can go ahead and get the Vauxhall loom grafted in now.

Tom