Autosparks wiring loom - a word of warning

[wsmempson]

So as well as my Lotus Elan Plus 2, my son and I own a Ginetta G15 that we have been restoring. we're on the final home straight of getting it back on the road after a surprisingly exhaustive restoration. One of the things that became apparent was that wiring loom was totally banjaxed; part of it had at some point become molten and masses of it had been bypassed with loads of nasty crimped connectors from halfords. We tried to turn the ignition on once and smoke poured out from under the dash.
Now I'm no auto electrician but i've installed looms before and a quick serch of the net revealed that Autosparks (a firn in the midlands who supply loads of aftermarket period electrical stuff) also offered a replacement loom for a Ginetta G15. The lead in time was about 8 weeks but we had other fish to fry. Eventually a smart new loom turned up and after a cursory examination we put it on the shelf to await installation.
When the time came and we had it on a bench ready to go in, my son and I compared it to the Ginetta wiring diagram and imagine my surprise to find that at least 50% of the colour coding did not match the wiring diagram or the existing loom.
A call to their technical department was singularly unhelpful and when I finally got through they implied that I was a bit of an idiot for looking at the old wiring diagram and that all their colour coding matched british standard colour coding and I should be able to work it out from there. Could I have a wiring diagram please? No - it's a secret.
So I called in a professional auto electrician and handed the problem over. 5 days later, and he's still struggling to work out what is going on. When he rang auto sparks, they finally confessed this is just a generic loom for british sports cars and not bespoke for a Ginetta at all. we're nearly there, but frankly if I had known then what I know now I would have got a grown up to rewire the car from scratch. I'd think very hard before ordering from them again. A rewire of the elan is on the cards, but I know who I shall NOT be ordering from.
No contrition from Autosparks - "If you have a problem, put it in writing".
Will this do??

[TonyA]

Refreshing to read a frank story about a bad product and bad aftersales service naming the supplier..Thanks for sharing...So many poeple only nane names from good experiences Noted for future reference: I am thinking about Autosparks looms for my Plus 2 ..not saying your exoerience puts me off, but at least I'll now want stuff like colours clarified in advance..Good luck with your restoration.. Tony

[512BB]

I concur with the above post, and thanks for the fore warning op, and having the balls to stick your head above the parapet. So many on here in the past have not. Shame. What we normally get is 'I have had a really crap experience but I am not going to tell you all who that was with'. Why start the bloody post then!

It would be great to read further about your +2 restoration.......with pictures of course.

All the best.

Leslie

[RichardHawkins]

Thanks for your statement.

I have rewired my car S4 FHC. I was horrified, like you, by the old wiring I found on dismantling my car and decided a better standard was needed. Like you I am not electrical, one of my friends is an electrical engineer and advised against my plan, but I persisted. I now have 22 fuses and 8 relays, my design is based on a Skoda Felicia. I have made many mistakes, mostly with respect to cable routing and clashes with other items. Rewiring has been the most difficult and time consuming part of my restoration.

Having read your post I feel vindicated in my decision to improve the wiring. If I had bought a loom as you did I would probably ended up throwing it away and starting again.

Thank you,

Richard Hawkins

[tonyabacus]

I have installed three looms in Elans and not really had too many problems, all came from Autosparks. One area that is a little confusing is the area around the flasher indicator unit/hazzard flasher if you are in the UK where some of this wiring is not used. However Autosparks helped talk through the issue, Craig their technical guy was quite helpfull, so I can only say speak as you find, for me they provided a good product. As a company he explained that they do not alter the harness from that originally fitted at the factory.

However we all know the Colin Chapman had little concern for additional fuses, relays etc, so it is worth careful consideration to such matters before installing the new harness. Also remember to take lots of photographs of the routing of wires once the dash in particular is removed, and if in doubt raise the subject on the Forum where lots of information and help is available.

One of the main issues is the different wiring diagrams that are available on the internet, I used a blown up version of the diagram in the factory workshop manual and found virtually all colours corresponded with the harness provided by Autosparks. Also reading the colours and routing became a lot easier to follow with the diagram blown up to at least A3.
Tony

[smo17003]

I have to say that the Autosparks looms (main loom and engine with alternator) went into my S4 FHC without too many problems. After reading the many topics on here regarding alternative home made looms I decided to stick with the Autosparks. Mainly because I had already bought them 15 or so years previous. I did make a few mods e.g. electric lamp pod lifters and fan switch etc. by following advice taken from here though. Of course, if Autosparks had supplied a generic loom, as in the case of the OP's G15, I too would be a bit p*ssed off.

I do think that it's a bit of a shame that from suppliers and specialists we can get better/improved parts for almost every part of the Elan e.g. Spyder chassis (I know, controversial), CV drive shafts, diff output shafts, cooling system, etc. In fact, just about everything and anything to "improve" the Elan, except that is for a better functioning wiring loom. We're left to our own devices on that one, hence the many DIY variations that have been posted on here.
If those suppliers and specialists can convince (some of) us that we need CV's, bigger rads etc. then I'm sure that they could do the same with a bloody wiring loom. I guess it all comes down to perceived risk on their part.

Rant over.

[alanr]

I think you will find that all the wiring looms that SJS, Kelevedon, CTL etc sell all come from Autosparks!
They are the main UK manufacturer of wiring looms for the majority of classic cars of all makes and also some more modern ones as well.

Alan.

[RAJ2628]

I bought the full harness for my S4.
I was disappointed with mine on several points and I agree with smo17003's comments.
During assembly, I felt that the supplier could do with assembling one of their harnesses to a car themselves to see the issues.
Having said all the above, Autosparks were very helpful in taking the harness back and correcting some issues. It's just that, for a product that hasn't changed in 50 years, there shouldn't be any issues

[alanr]

Whilst not defending Autosparks in any way and the way they handled msmepson's queries was not good at all I do think that to expect to buy a plug and play wiring loom for a 50 year olf Ginetta G15 kit car,of which only a few hundred were originally made and sold was expecting in the first place a hell of lot!

Where Autosparks went wrong on this occasion is it seems was they didn't explain at the point of sale what they were actually selling wasn't a plug and play wiring loom but a generic loom. That is where they went wrong!.
Obviously their retail customer handling skill set is not that great and the way the handled the after sale queries about the supplied loom was pretty awful.
The problem is though that nowadays any car wiring loom that you buy anywhere in the world, UK, USA or wherever for any make of classic car will have 99% of the time been manufactured by Autosparks Ltd in Nottingham.UK.so any manufactured alternative options will be very hard to find if you want plug and play.

Alan

[elan66]

If it was advertised as a loom for a 50 year old ginetta it should at least bare some resemblance to a 50 year old ginetta loom, otherwise advertise it as a British sports car generic loom,

[mjbeanie]

Agree! A terrible supplier. NOTE: British Wiring gets their harnesses from Autosparks so you find no relief there!! Steer clear!

I fought with British wiring over the harness flaws, defects, and oversights for months while I was wiring my 71 Plus 2S from front to back. The old harness provided some clues, but many discrepancies were found, that I couldn't sort. During one of my many encounters with British wiring, they explained that they do not necessarily use the OEM drawings to make their harnesses. It seems they may not feel obliged to always use the same wiring color codes. When this was explained, I then asked what they use to manufacture their products, and if I could have a copy. No joy there. They were not going to help me decode my purchase.

My car is a export based Federal model, LHD. The "Federal harness" I purchased on their webpage, was not a Federal harness, as it ignored the changes made to the wiring, for this model. I had to make my own circuits for the indicators, and flasher, and Lucas DB10 relay box. In addition, ALL their harnesses are for RHD models. Even though I specifically requested their LHD harness that they advertise. I had to make a complete U turn behind the dash with the giant wire bundle to feed the gauges on the left side. I also had to replace all their connectors with "Flag" type right angle spade connectors to be able to get the dash back into place.

(If you do purchase their components, be sure to complete a visual check on any multi-pin connectors that bridge any harnesses together. I found wires on the dash and engine bay multi-pin connectors, "going nowhere", because their mating wire was installed one pin location off, on the mating connector. Another engineering success story from the think tank at Autosparks Quality Control. (apologies for the sarcasm-it slipped out)

I forwarded schematic diagrams, and photos of the actual wiring discrepancies to both Autosparks Engineering AND the British Wiring sales team, and ultimately received a refund. But there is nothing good about this experience, they offer a poor quality product, and poor customer support -especially at British Wiring.

As mentioned there are not many options, so fire up the digital multimeter, ....and the Guinness.

[MACCA.GLM]

Hi

Just to put my 2 penneth in I recently bought all the wires from auto sparks to replace the hard brittle wires in the boot of my sprint. the wires came with the correct colours that I ordered the correct lengths and I just made my own to the pattern I had with no issues with anything.So for me they did the job ok.I have never bought a full loom so I cart comment on that, but to be quite honest copying the original loom doesn't seem to be as complicated as one would think once you have bought correct colours lengths and thickness of wires needed.

Regards

G

[RichardHawkins]

I agree about flag terminals, I used many behind the dash complete with little plastic insulating covers, very useful.

Richard Hawkins

[TonyA]

I also found the 'shallow' profile of flag terminals very useful behind the dashboard for the window switches when I adapted to operate relays..They are fine for light duty currents like relay switching, instruments etc, but would be less happy for them to carry the full current of window or wiper motor and heated rear window ..Also, they don't crimp as well as the traditional lucar straight type terminal connectors.. so I crimp AND solder them to be sure..Tony

[Donels]

I’m just fitting an Autosparks loom in my +2 (the original was butchered beyond belief) and the quality seems good and all the colours are correct. What I do find though is that the various legs of the harness are all tight, a little more length would be brilliant. This is not an Autosparks issue but a Lotus issue.

Regarding the flags, I was with a Lotus restorer a couple of weeks ago and his advice was to fit flags, try the dashboard fitting early because with the harness it’s a very tight fit and also trial fit the crashpad as that’s also tricky.