Plus 2 S dashboard wiring

[TomMull]

Re: (March 1970) Federal Plus 2 S 50/00023 dash wiring harness.

I have received the third harness for this job, the first clearly my mistake (ordered the S 130 harness) the second apparently incorrectly labeled but the lead time was three months on each. So it has been a while.

Matty’s number on the one I have is 050E which I think is the Autosparks 868 but I find the catalogs confusing. It should fit the Plus 2 S with dynamo. The closer I look the more unlike the original it seems but the colors on the original have badly faded and I can’t seem to lay out identical branches either. They seem close but not identical.

My car has an alternator but it is wired with one wire from the harness and two others taped to the outside. From that I assumed the alternator was not original. Perhaps that assumption is wrong. I find no control box. I have not as yet removed the main loom.

Suffice to say I am not satisfied that I have the correct loom and further complicated as I cannot confirm that I have the correct diagram.

The closest dashboard diagram in my manual says “Federal Plus 2 S 1968 – 1969” and my Federal car is a 1970. Close enough?

I also find two diagrams for the main harness, one with dynamo and one with alternator, but only one for the dash harness. Can I assume then that the dash harness diagram covers both and there is no difference?

The connectors between the main and dash harnesses are correct, two six pin and 1 12 pin, but the actual wire colors do not all agree. Although I have a diagram of all the main to dash connections, I do not have them by individual multi connectors. Should I just plug them together and not worry.

I am beginning to match most of the switch wires to the diagram but not all and am proceeding with little confidence at this point. Perhaps that will improve as I progress?

All thoughts, advice, questions and comments will be appreciated.

Tom

[Bud English]

Tom- For what it's worth my car is (March 1970) Federal Plus 2 S 50/00053N. It should be pretty close to the same layout as yours. I'm fairly sure that my car did not have the main harness used in the 1969 cars with a generator. It matched the wiring diagram for the 1970 and up +2S (up to the change to the +2s 130 cars). The easy way to tell, I think, is the car having the three, four fuse, fuse boxes installed in the main wiring harness. The earlier cars had only two fuses IIRC. The +2S 130 cars had only four fuses.

I believe my car had the harness for the generator equipped car, but had the alternator kit (part number A050 M 6207, detailed on page 106 in the chassis manual) installed before it left the factory. There was no indication on my car that a control box was ever installed and removed to install the kit, but physical wiring has the spliced wiring as per the kit instructions. I can't prove that as I'm the second owner, taking over at the eight year old point.

My harness had the two six and one twelve pin connectors, as yours does.

Some of the dash wiring in my car matched the color code in the manual, some portions didn't. I didn't keep track of what did and didn't. I've not seen wiring diagrams with the dash separate from the main wiring diagrams, except as shown on the March '68 - March '69 diagram. My car in no way matched that diagram.

If the colors of the wires on both sides of the multi pin connectors don't match when mated, I'd ohm out the harness to ensure that they are physically correct before just plugging them in and hoping for the best.

Unfortunately I can't be of much further help as my original harness is dismembered and a total rewire is almost complete. There's enough changed on the car that replacing the wiring with built up replacement harnesses didn't make much sense.

Actually this might not be much help at all.

[Billmack]

Practically all British wiring follows the same color code system so there's that.. Also a couple rules mostly followed: different color wires don't plug into each other and no connections are buried in the harness. If any of the multi pin plugs have different color wires going in to each other that is almost certainly wrong
A color list off the top of my head
Solid brown directly from battery hot all the time
Purple same as brown except thru a fuse
White hot with key no fuse
Green same as white but through a fuse
Green with white stripe right blinker
Green with red stripe left blinker
Blue light switch to dip switch
Blue with white stripe dip switch to hi beams
Blue with red stripe dip switch to low beams
Brown with blue hot to ignition and light switch
Charging system varies whether generator, alternator with separate regulator or alternator with integral regulator. Those changed from year to year. Most separate regulator alternators were updated to integral regulator systems. That's what I remember for now.

[TomMull]

Bud, On the contrary, your comments are very helpful. Our cars seem to be very close sisters. Everything you've mentioned seems to fit, 3 fuse blocks, no evidence of control box.
I am missing the 1970 and up diagram or at least one so marked so if anyone, has one I would very much appreciate a copy, I do have main one that is marked as "Elan Plus 2 S Wiring Diagram Alternator Federal". Perhaps the same? Also reassuring to know that your dash did not match the '68 - '69 diagram.

Still in my mind is whether the 68 - 69 diagram matches the new harness I have. Something to research today.
(Autosparks tells me that they make all their harnesses directly from old ones, not from diagrams. Seems to be a bit primitive to me but I am certainly not one to judge.)

And Billmack, The term "Practically all" as in "Practically all British wiring follows the same color code system" seems to exclude Lotus, at least from my experience.
(My wife grew up on Mt. Hope Bay and we spent lots of time in the Warren area.)

Tom