Speedster Electrical help please.

Calling for any opinions, knowledge and suggestions that the members can give me on this electrical problem. Thanks in advance for any help. I will post this question on both Speedster sites.

The Speedster D is an 83

Call Henry.

Danny's yanking your chain - Eastern corrosion humor, I bet. Electrical problems most likely can't be solved over phone on 20 year old car. NJ says some corrosion definitely present. I hate those ceramic foil wrapped 30 year old fuses! Start with a wiring diagram - VS one posted here would be good start (do a search - I contributed hand drawn VS ones but someone had a PDF professionally drawn). I'd clean fuse contacts with light sand paper and replace the fuses. Di-electric grease is good to preven reoccurance of corrosion. Then I'd look for grounds and clean them. Some appear to be accessory powered devices - was the key on to the non-power fuses? A cheap volt/ohm meter ($3 at Harbor Freight Tools) is investment for checking for voltage and good grounds (resistance).

Headlights no.
Rear running lights no.
License plate up light no.......Some of those headlight switches have a fuse mounted on the switch itself or may have knocked loose a wire at the headlight switch as all of the above are powered from that switch.

Brake lights no......pull the wires from the brake light pressure switch on the master cyliner and jump out the terminals, I suspect a bad brake light switch ~Alan

Wolfgang, fuse box is pretty clean and we used the multi meter, fuses 1,2 and 4 have no power so the open circuit is somewhere before the fuses. The fuses are all glass type 15amps.
Allan, I was looking for an inline fuse, will look a little harder and check out the light switch for a fuse also. The MC switch looks clean but I will jumper them to see if the brakes come on.
Thanks for your comments
Dave

Dave, if you can't get it working then bring it up to Ontario. I have a "home shop" and work on Speedsters and Spyders

Dave -

FWIW - Larry has worked on quite a few of the SOC'ers cars here in SoCal. Great work and more than fair pricing. Well worth the trip to Ontario! Larry's a good guy who will get your car back on track.

Dave, I had similar problems that started with a plate lite. The more I fooled around with it the more lites failed. My VS (I think) was built in 1993 and I found a mulitude of failed crimps behind and between places that I would never have expeted to find them. Also, good grounding cannot be understated. good luck. Al

Larry,

Thanks for the offer I might take you up on it. I have seen your posts throughout the forum and can tell you know your stuff.

I did have a go at the drivers side tail light and cleaned up the ground and cut out the crimps and the wires which looked pretty good. I will keep looking for more connections that look sketchy.

Busy day back at work today and don't have time to get at the wire tracing until tomorrow I hope.

Thanks
Dave

Allan,

Your advice was right on! After three brutal days at work I had a chance to spend a few hours of quality time with "Convertable D".I did the MC switch test and sure enough the brake lights went on when I jumpered the two leads together. The multi meter showed that there was 12V coming in on one side. Will pick up a MC switch tomorrow. I will do the quick change and have my right seater up above ready to pour in some more brake fluid. Even if we get air in the system Chrissa has helped me bleed the brakes on many of our cars in the far past.

Then I got busy on the headlight problem, got upside down and under the dash checking wires and guess what, with my flashlight I saw a blown fuse on my light switch just like you said. So simple! I changed it out and lights work. HIGH FIVE
Thanks everbody and especially Allan for the help.

Cheers
Dave

I used to have an MG Midget that used the same brake light switch. I seemed to go through one every couple of years, and got pretty adept at swapping it out. I found that if you filled the little hole in the switch with brake fluid - checking for a trapped air bubble and removing it with a toothpick, if necessary - you could swap it without losing significant fluid or needing to bleed the brakes. Of course on the Midget, the switch was at the junction where the front and rear brake lines separated, not on the MC itself.

Well for $5.25 and a little wrenching I fixed my brake light today. It was the brake light switch on the MC like Allan suggested. Very easy and all the install hints worked perfectly. I primed the new switch with brake fluid and poked out the bubbles to reduce air bubbles in the system and moved real fast on the switch R&R. I did not even have to bleed the brakes as the pedal action felt good on the test drive to pick up some taco's for dinner.

So I have asked and received help from the SOC and for about 6 bucks I got my Speedster safe again. This was my real welcome to the SOC.
Thanks to all.

So this weekend I can drive a little farther and install some fun stuff like my JPS Porsche horn kit and my 3rd brake light license plate holder.

Cheers
Dave