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G'day Neophyteguy :)
This 1971 2a is an ex-army one ??? as you mention a Map light, has it still got it's Blackout switch?, there is an earth wire (battery cable size) between the left engine mount lower bolt and the upper bolt (bridging the rubber mount) that is chassis to engine block, the other one is from gearbox X member to bellhousing,there might even be light woven straps between bonnet and firewall,this vehicle being a Negitive Earth production would have keystart ignition, there would be the following on the starter solenoid switch, battery in from + soloenoid to starter,2 brown wires from +solenoid term to-reg term"A" not A1,and brown to Horn,spade terminal wire(red/white to Ign switch)this is the energiser wire, the fuse box (2 fuses) has upper permanent power,lower ign powered,(wipers,blinkers,coil,stop)horn could be through this,that is about all I can help at this time will go and look at my 68 military 2a wiring(-E) later for you :)
cheers
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John and Uncle Ho,
Firstly, a huge thanks to you both for your time in helping me work through this! Yes, this is a military 2a and has a blackout switch.
After printing out both of your previous responses (and having taken a couple of days away from electrical systems!), I started to work through this again.
When I looked at the back of the black out switch, the terminals didnt look very usable. In fact, a couple of the terminals looked black, but they didnt look like they had been freshly fried. Either way, they were replaced.
I then went back to the battery and tracked voltage through the system again. Even though I had done this literally dozens of times, I thought it a good idea to check all terminals and connections again. So, voltage to the starter relay was fine.
It was getting late and the warehouse lights were warming up when I checked the voltage from the relay to the lead which goes to the switch. Low and behold, I got a little spark! At the time I was using a test lead and had been checking voltage by placing the voltage on the tab coming off the relay rather than necessarily placing the test lead on the connector.
So, what was happening was the connector was actually shorting through the test lead on to the tab on the relay. I had the light switch on and was alerted to things happening when the headlamp shined on the roller door. Woohoo!!!!!!!!
Turns out the connector at the relay wasn't really making a great connection. It was a good enough connection to carry voltage, but when more was asked of the connection, it was failing. Ive never seen anything like this before.
The connection was a large push on type connector which was soldered on. It was the type of connection that it would be hard to ever doubt!
I will be replacing this cable all the way back to the switch later this week.
I am not sure if the voltage was being lost over both the blackout switch and the connector or just the connector.
Thanks again for your help guys! I very much appreciate it.
Ronnie
