New owner with electrical problems!

[Bluefield]

Greetings everyone,

Just want to do a quick introduction as I just became an Elan owner! After looking for a long time I finally found the car that was right for me, a ?64 S1. Now the fun (or trouble) begins!

As most of you probably have experienced one does the biggest mistakes in the beginning of your ownership. For me this happened yesterday when I used starting aid due to a badly charged battery. I put the wrong polarity on the battery? ... please don?t judge me! I noticed this almost immediately and pulled the wires. After charging the battery (out of the car) I could start the engine and everything seemed to work properly. However, I soon noticed that the front indicators and the horn had stopped working. I checked the power to the horn compressor (not original) and it was only 1 volt. I also checked the cables and connectors which I could find and could not find any obvious problems. Do you have any idea where I should start looking to find the source? Is there a relay behind the facia/dash for these two? Everything else is working as should. I guess I have to remove the dashboard anyway, so are there any secret tricks to make this easier? (Of course I will be careful and label all wires)

It feels a bit awkward introducing myself and exposing my stupidity at the same time, but any help here would be greatly appreciated. At least the car still looks and drives as should!

Bluefield
Big fool but happy owner

[gordont]

welcome aboard and good to have another early elan owner on the forum.
I am unsure where the relays are supposed to be but mine are down on the LHS front near the radiator.
Good luck and welcome aboard, maybe post a picture to show what you have bought and tell everyone what part of the globe you are in.

cheers

Gordon

[Higs]

Do not rush in to take the dash out - you can do a lot of checking first. Elan electrics are really quite easy. The very complicated wiring diagram is the main culprit - it was drawn like this to avoid too may wires crossing on the drawing (btw, the later cars are claimed to have "simpler" wiring - most of this down to a change in the way the wiring diagram is drawn and not the actual wiring!). Modifications by previous owners usually do not help either! So don't panic and follow the wires and test things. The simple answers are usually the correct ones.

I would doubt that the problem is the relays (these are not affected by polarity).

The side lights and the horn (on my early +2) are on different circuits. The lights are on the unswitched circuit (i.e. do not go through the ignition switch), do not go through a relay and it is hard to see what has caused them to fail. Presumably you have a dynamo and control box. The feed to the light switch comes from the Brown/Blue lead from the Control Box. Check this has 12v (presumably it does or your headlights nor ignition would not work!). Then check bulbs etc.

The horn is on the fused circuit (presumably you only have 2 fuses as per the plus 2?). Check the fuse that feeds the purple and white wire, clean contacts etc.).

If you turned the ignition on with the incorrect polarity, I would be concerned about rev counter.

Hope this helps!

Richard

[neilsjuke]

Check and clean the fuse most faults are bad earths look for the black wire bullet connectors from the lamps and the horn earths links to the steering rack the uj joint on the shaft under carbs the pencil pick up under the horn button as far as the quick flash of wrong polarity if the ignition was off it will be fine if you ran it you may need to re polarise the dynamo.
Neil

[types26/36]

Hi Bluefield (you are allowed to use your real name and a location can help with answers)
The S1/2 has a very simple wiring diagram and the standard horn circuit does not have a relay but one could have been added for the air compressor ....you will have to check.
The indicators have a FLASHER UNIT but not a relay as such, it does have a relay for the flashing headlights and an other flasher unit for this but they are not in the indicator circuit or the horn circuit.
It also has a main headlight relay but this is nothing to do with the horn or indicators.
The main headlight relay is situated under the dash above the steering column and the HEADLIGHT flashing relay with HEADLIGHT FLASHER UNIT is on the body at the left hand side next to the radiator but you should not be concerned with these as they are not part of the horn or indicator circuit.
The INDICATOR FLASHER UNIT is above the steering column near the main headlight relay.
As previously mentioned first check the fuses (1) for not being blown and (2) for bad/loose fitting in the fuse box.
I have attached a wiring diagram, blow it up and study it then follow the circuits as it is not too difficult.

[billwill]

If your car still has a dynamo (rather than replaced with an alternator) it is faintly possible that you have forced the dynamo to change polarity, which will cause strange things to happen. Find the article on how to change polarity & make sure to change it back.

Someone here might have a quick link to that article.

Use a multimeter first to check on whether a previous owner has changed the car from positive earth to negative earth. Actually toiu can tell this in the boot by seeing which battery lead is connected through the floor to the chassis .

Elsewise as mentioned above there is very little in an Elan which is polarity dependent, except the rev-counter. Fans & other motors might possibly rotate in the opposite direction, but would not be damaged and would work properly once you went back to the correct battery.

So most likely your problems are due to dirty wiring (especially Earthing) connections or blown fuses. You may find some extra fuses in in-line pods in the wiring behind the dash panel. You can usually reach those by taking out the ashtray and/or the "knee" trims that fit to the underside edge of the dashboard.

[Higs]

Brian

If that is the official Lotus wiring diagram for the S1 and S2 then they really lost the plot when they drew the one for the early +2!

If it isn't, then it should have been!

Richard

[types26/36]

Brian If that is the official Lotus wiring diagram for the S1 and S2 then they really lost the plot when they drew the one for the early +2! If it isn't, then it should have been!Richard

Yes that is stright from the Original Lotus W/S Manual, pretty simply isnt it ......the S3/4 and Plus Two's are a whole different matter.

[billwill]

Yeah, I usually use that simple one in preference to the 'proper' one for the S3.

However there are a few bits missing w.r.t the S3.

[Bluefield]

Thanks everyone for your kind assistance, greatly appreciated. I will do some more crawling underneath the dash and measure on what connections I can find. Maybe I can borrow my brothers 6 year old son- his hands might have a better size for this job...

I will post a picture of the car as soon as I have it polished

Bluefield /26-3811
Sweden

[wojeepster]

Let me recommend "How to diagnose and repair automobile electrical systems" by Tracy Martin. It is by far the best book on fixing electrical problems that I have ever read. You can get it on amazon for I think less than $20. For me it made problems that were difficult or near impossible to understand, transparent.

[Emma-Knight]

Did you put both jumper wires to the batterie contacts - then the current would just go between the batteries and not do any harm to the loom. If you have used chassis earth in the engine bay area, its a different story...

Checking the loom can cause beautiful results
but knock you off the road for one year
The photos show the same loom, cleaned, checked, useless wires removed, broken wires replaced, some bullet connectors resoldered and some new spade connectors crimped.
The grey silicon rubber bullet and spade sleeves have been dumped in Armor all for some days and then reused.
The heater box is missing in picture "b".

Anna

[Bluefield]

I found the source for the electrical problems - a bad cable to one of the fuses and a corroded ground connection. Fixed it and now everything is working as should! I took a look at the loom behind the dash and it looked pretty ok so I just put it back very carefully and screwed it tight. Will not open and cause further harm Thank you all for your assistance!

Attached is a photo of my car on the trailer during the transport, first day of ownership.

/Bluefield, 26-3811

[billwill]

Looks to be in very nice condition.

[pereirac]

Welcome to the 'happy world' of Elan ownership. Whatever troubles the car throws at you, most of them are easily resolved (usually electrical) but ionce you drive the car it's all worth while

Your car looks amazing, just curious, are the wheels bolt on or knock on?

Carl