No the red ones are far from perfect. Aren't the blue ones for flat connectors?

I would also make sure you have good earth connections.

So today I removed the wiring loom and unraveled all the electrical tape around the wiring harness which took about 30 to 45 minutes!

I opened up a can of worms! It's actually a good thing that my headlamp was giving me problems because I discovered some things. For starters, look at the first photo.

Someone has replaced about a foot of every green wire above the heat exchanger with black wiring.



My guess would be one of three things happened, One of the wires shorted out and caught the other wires on fire. Maybe one of the headlamps which is unprotected?

Maybe the air cleaner was off and the car backfired and spewed petrol on the wiring?

Or the heat exchanger got hot enough to melt the wiring? Is that possible?

What really concerned me was the thick yellow wire that goes to the alternator. Someone had replaced it with a section of thicker red wiring but then those two connectors had got hot and corroded sometime after the repair.





In the second photo there are two brown and two green wires all connected together.



How were these insulated from the factory? Just electrical tape? Or was some kind of plastic shield supposed to have went around them? Like those clamp shell protectors used on old FIATs and other Italian cars?

When I unraveled the tape to this point, I checked the RH main beam headlamp and now it and the dash indicator are working. Yet the connection looks OK. When I touch my test light to these four wires with the main beams on, my test light lights up and goes on on dipped beam. The wiring diagram for the main beams does not show these two green and two brown wires being connected. BTW, this must be the non UK diagram not showing the resistor and relay set.

So now I'm going to check and replace every connector which looks suspicious. Now maybe a good time to add four independent in-line fuses for the headlamps.

OK some questions:

Can the heat exchanger get hot enough to melt these wires? Do I need to get some of that insulation wrap to go over the wiring where it touches? Like this stuff:



What was used from the factory? The loom the PO installed had been touching the heat exchanger and it showed no signs of melting.

Was the wiring wrapped up with electrical tape or that cloth style tape stuff?

Rather than re-wrapping all of these wires with tape, I'm going to secure them with those nylon cable ties. Just in case I have to deal with this again.

But I think it would be a good idea to protect this section of the wiring harness.

Also best I can tell the earths for EVERYTHING under the bonnet connect to thicker wire to a stud on the bulkhead next to the battery (LHD). There is also a redundant wire coming off the negative battery cable which also connects to this same threaded stud.

The bullet style connectors that are used on the headlamps and park lamps are in bad shape. I'm going to replace those while I'm at it.

Hi TF
The negative wire from body to battery is not redundant, it obviously connects the body to the battery.

The thick negative from battery to gearbox is for the starter. The engine is rubber mounted!

All those blue blue connectors are usually rubbish if they aren't crimped on with a good type of special pliers (not the tin ones that are usually delivered with a set of connectors) The wires are originally covered in kind of non sticking insulation tape with some sticking tapes here and there were wires are split of. The heat exchangers heat is no problem but loose laying cables can bu worn thru and short. Then they often burn the other cables next to the with it.
Maybe it is even better to solder those cable connections and than put crimping tubes on it than roll the whole lot of cables again with unsulation tape.
https://www.autosparks.co.uk/finder

Self amalgamating tape is the stuff to use when wrapping wires together. It's non-sticky, but sticks to itself hence its name. Harness should be kept suspended away from hot surfaces with cable ties and the like.

It's possible the wiring rubbed against the sharp edges on the heat exchanger and that may have been what shorted them out.

Wrapping the wiring with some of this stuff maybe the ticket:

https://www.amazon.com/010474-Sleeve-Pr ... B001HYRPC4

I'm going to solder where some of these wire meet to prevent future corrosion so I don't have to worry about it. Those aluminum butt connectors work, but I've noticed they tend to develop corrosion after awhile.

As far as those crimpers. This is what I've been using for ages:



I paid a pretty penny for them about 25 years ago. Those other type your talking about, yes they are not very good.

I was telling the electrician on shift about this mess and how that cheap electrical tape tends to come loose after awhile when used in engine compartments and he gave me a roll of this 3M electrical tape that is good to 185C/365F. The weird thing is he told me to stretch it, and wrap it around the sticky side facing outwards instead of touching the wires.

Yes that 3M scotch tape is very good, the electricians in the coalmines here used that too. Never heard of using the sticky side out though.

I imagine that would stay on the hands quite well . . .