I spent the past few weekends sorting out electrical gremlins in my '68 Mini Traveller. The car was converted to negative ground by a previous owner, and the wiring is a mess. Though to my surprise, the original fuse box which held two 35 amp fuses was upgraded to a four fuse box with 10, 20, 25 and 25 amp fuses. These were independent circuits which are connected together (like a bus bar) on the side with the 12 volt wire coming from the starter motor. I have replaced many damaged or melted wires, polished copper connectors, replaced degraded connectors with insulated crimp on connectors, etc.
I have been surprised after stripping insulation from original wires to find the number of copper strands and their thickness to be much smaller than expected (fewer / thinner stands being a higher wire gauge number). In my car, the wiper motor circuit is at most 16 gauge and may drop to 18 after a connector. The voltage stabilizer wire appears to be 14 gauge, and the head light circuit appears to be 14 or possibly 12 gauge. I have been using a minimum of 16 gauge wire in my repairs.
None of the Mini shop manuals list the wire gauges used for the various circuits. A search of this forum turned up lots of great posts on fixing fuel and temperature gauge problems, but nothing on wire gauges!
For a '68 / Mk2 Mini, does anyone have a list of recommended wire gauge by circuit and / or accessory?
Were specific wire colors, or color / tracer combinations a particular gauge?
Many thanks,
David Schwartz
Framingham, MA
Edited by dschwartz1957, 04 May 2015 - 10:26 PM.
