Talk Morgan Forums Morgan Sports Cars Classic Morgans (pre-CX) Wiring oddity

Dullan .... You're right, it's a not uncommon thing (tho through years of Swedish, French, American, Italian and British cars I've never owned one with that feature actually fitted ).

Deejay .... that sounds extremely plausible .... I'll go with that and consider my curiosity satisfied!!

K

On VWs leaving the inidicator on used to turn on the sidelights when the key was removed.

The changeover switch in park mode would allow the coil earth to inhibit engine starting for security and as a reminder as suggested. I'm guessing it would be in a less than obvious location.

I reckon that the lockdown is getting to you when you start reading wiring diagrams!

At least they follow logic .... unlike reading the newspapers!

Ex electronics tech, so comfort reading for me ..... easy working out what the switch did ..... WHY it was put there is another thing altogether..... messy Human stuff and far less obvious


K

K, my old 1974 +8 had a switch that cut out the ignition on the dash. I'm afraid I can't remember (it was 1980) if it did have a light image on it, but it didn't turn on any light when operated. I turned the switch around, so it wasn't obvious when operated, so a useful immobiliser at the time.

after spending way too much time on wiring diagrams the last couple days I believe to understand the circuit now:

Maybe an owner of an older Morgan with a dashboad like this one below can confirm that the switch labelled "P" was the "park switch"


As you can see from the diagram the light switch was feed from the Anmeter (brown-white (NW) cable) --> to the light switch --> via a fuse to the parkswitch.
If there is no key in the ignition - no power would go to the lights. Therefore, the park switch had a second power feed via the white-black cable from the coil - which in turn is feed through the ballast resistor
with a white-yellow cable from the starter solenoid battery port.

Based on the information and pictures from John Worrall's & Liz Turner's book it can be assumed that with the introduction of the 1969 Morgan 4/4 the black leather dashboard with the black switches also also found in the Mini and other british cars - the park switch was removed.

My 1984 Morgan has exactly this light switch. It is a 3-way switch and connect via a brown cable. With this the park light can be switched on (will power red-green cable to fuse and from there on side & rear lamps). The second position of the switch will also power the blue cable (going to the flasher switch).

I am quite certain that the Morgan factory made changes to the wiring over the years without documenting this in the diagrams. The park switch is a good example.

Regards
Tim

My Land Rover has an identical shape switch although black. It switches off the "P" for panel lights when not required, after turning on lights. This was quite common in early cars with dynamo charging as every milliamp counted

I had a couple of old MOD Land Rovers - they also had the 'convoy' light - it would turn all the lights off, bar a small low powered bulb above the rear diff (which was painted white) for night time stealth operations.....

just to make sure - are we talking about the same switch?