"Standard" wiring colours

[yorkshire_spam]

My Spitfire 1500 has a slightly customised wiring loom, but where possible I stick to standard colours.

Brown = live
Purple = fused live
White = live on ignition
Green = fused live on ignition
Etc. 
I'm about to add some additional relays for things like a fuel pump and some other higher wattage items - is there any standard colour for a "fused live on ignition - relay switched" in later Triumph/Leyland models? I'm thinking I'll go with something like green with a tracer and white with a tracer depending on fused/unfused. 

 

[RogerH]

This will have a selection of Lucas colours

http://www.advanceautowire.com/tr24a.pdf

https://www.classiccarperformance.com/blogs/how-it-works-knowledge-series/lucas-wiring-color-codes

 

Roger

Edited January 5 by RogerH

[Escadrille Ecosse]

Not specifically for relay activated components as far as I know.

For example Reliant used the basic Lucas colours and included a few relay switched items on the Scimitar, essentially these have the input and output in the appropriate colour/traces with the power being either white, green or brown as appropriate.

I have added a good few extra relays (and fuses) to protect the switchgear and just copied this approach.

Edited January 5 by Escadrille Ecosse

[yorkshire_spam]

Thanks Roger/Colin. Looking at the early v8 land rover wiring diagrams (which share a lot of the common colours with the Triumphs) they use white with a purple trace for the fuel pump feed after the relay. 

 

[JumpingFrog]

Last time I checked it was only really Autosparks that had the two colour cables, and there aren't actually that many combinations available.

It depends how far you're going, assuming you're making major changes and unwrapping most of the loom, I would down size cables running to the relay solenoid. E.g. for headlights, if you keep sizes appropriate it should be relatively obvious which Blue/White is the switch and which goes to the actual high beam bulbs?

P.S. If you manage to find any good software for drawing automotive wiring looms, let me know, I'm planning a similar project for my Eight and haven't found anything worth using.

Edited January 5 by JumpingFrog

[RogerH]

I get most of my cable from here 

https://www.vehiclewiringproducts.co.uk/c-48-cables/c-198-single-core-pvc-thin-wall-cable

Most of the 'traced' wire only goes up to 16amps.

 

Roger

[ed_h]

There is a British Standard BS-AU7 for automotive wire colors:

https://www.automate-it.com/lee/wirecode.html

Ed

[yorkshire_spam]

Thanks Roger/Ed/David.

Sad to hear that wire with trace marks on is hard to find - last time I re-wired the Spitfire it was easy to get high current, thin wall insulated automotive stuff in pretty much all colour combinations. Times have changed and not for the better.

@JumpingFrog Sadly the best I could manage was to take the coloured Spitfire diagram and then re-work it in GIMP to match my new wiring. (I've been looking at doing new stuff online with draw.io though as it supports lines with 2 colours - inner and outer) I already added relays for the main and dip beam on the lights, taking the load off the dash switch for the lights. For that I un-wrapped the loom, took the old wires out and replaced with higher rated stuff in the same colours.

This is how it's currently wired (not perfect, but it allowed me to update slowly and keep the car on the road as I did it)

What I want to do is something a little more radical now and put a BIG relay in for all the live on ignition stuff (basically all the green wired circuits) to take the load off the loom/ignition switch AND add a relay for an electric fuel pump and the associated inertia switch etc. 
My fuse/relay box supports up to 4 relays and I currently have just 2 for the lights - so I should be ok. I also want to improve/uprate the brown/live feeds into and around the fuse box as when I first did them it wasn't the best arrangement. 

 

 

[yorkshire_spam]

4 hours ago, ed_h said:

There is a British Standard BS-AU7 for automotive wire colors:

https://www.automate-it.com/lee/wirecode.html

Ed

Shows fuel pump as white/purple - which agrees with the Land Rover diagram I found and (subject to getting cable) is what I think I'll use for that circuit. 

[yorkshire_spam]

17 hours ago, JumpingFrog said:

Last time I checked it was only really Autosparks that had the two colour cables, and there aren't actually that many combinations available.

Looks like 12voltplanet and vehiclewiringproducts also have some 2 colour options, but nobody seems to have anything much above 1mm / 16A

[RogerH]

53 minutes ago, yorkshire_spam said:

Looks like 12voltplanet and vehiclewiringproducts also have some 2 colour options, but nobody seems to have anything much above 1mm / 16A

Although not the best solution you can parallel the cables to increase current handling

2 wires gives 32amp    3 for 48amp

Wrap these together before putting into a loom.

 

Roger

[DeTRacted]

AES have a good selection of trace colours but only up to 1mm in thin-wall cable. 

https://www.autoelectricsupplies.co.uk/p/thin-wall-cable

I'm not surprised that you can't find heavier 2-colour cable.  It is really intended for final circuits to show what is being powered as per the standard and few of those take more than 16A.  

Could you not use a heavy solid colour cable and sleeve the ends with coloured heatshrink rings to show differentiation ? 

 

 

Edited January 6 by DeTRacted

[yorkshire_spam]

12 minutes ago, DeTRacted said:

AES have a good selection of trace colours but only up to 1mm in thin-wall cable. 

https://www.autoelectricsupplies.co.uk/p/thin-wall-cable

I'm not surprised that you can't find heavier 2-colour cable.  It is really intended for final circuits to show what is being powered as per the standard and few of those take more than 16A.  

Could you not use a heavy solid colour cable and sleeve the ends with coloured heatshrink rings to show differentiation ? 

 

 

To be honest I'm not sure what I'm going to do/need. I may just stick to standard solid colours (eg. green) whether the line is relay switched or fed from the ignition directly. 

I think the only long run I need in 2 colour at the moment will be for wiring the fuel pump and that's way less than 16A and so the 1mm white-purple (available a few places) is probably fine. 

The other stuff - I'll mull it over. 

 

[JumpingFrog]

Out of curiosity, have you measured the draw of the fuel pump? Hardi Fuel pumps seem to be rated at about 2A @ 12V, Huco quote 75W, so 6.25A @ 12V, but I suspect average is much lower and that's just peak on the solenoid? Facet similarly say up to 5A but also say average is under 2A.  Assuming you're using the WQT100030 inertia switch, those are rated up to 10A so I don't see a problem there.

By the way, MTA's modular fuse/relay system is worth a look if you haven't decided on something already. They do bus bar terminals for
the fuse holders which I hope should make the wiring much less messy, I never really understood why most aftermarket fuse boxes don't have bus bars. This is what I've bought for my Eight:


P.s. my planned relays are 1. ignition (maxi), 2. high beam, 3. low beam, 4. radiator fan and 5. electronic flasher unit. They also do a module with 6x micro relay sockets, which would be useful if you wanted lots of relays (fuel pump, horn, wiper motor etc.).

Edited January 6 by JumpingFrog

[yorkshire_spam]

1 hour ago, JumpingFrog said:

By the way, MTA's modular fuse/relay system is worth a look if you haven't decided on something already. They do bus bar terminals for
the fuse holders which I hope should make the wiring much less messy, I never really understood why most aftermarket fuse boxes don't have bus bars. This is what I've bought for my Eight:

I bought an off the shelf one a while ago to replace the one I put together years ago when I started on the Spitfire wiring. But I like that one - very neat!

At the moment I have this in the passenger footwell:

[BiTurbo228]

Looks good!

Considering that I've got a couple of complete car rewires coming up, and rather like having lots of different colours available, I've pulled a load of wiring from cars at breakers yards. Often you can find cars that have already got all of their interiors pulled out, so you can get long lengths of the wring loom snipped off relatively easily. Vans are especially good as you can get really long lengths from all of the looms that run backwards for the lights and boot release stuff.

I got about 3 bucketfuls of the stuff for £40 or so, and in a dizzying variety of different colours and in OEM quality.

Just avoid any mercs from '92-96. Biodegradeable wiring harnesses is not a problem you want to get into.

Oh, and also, I found early-to-mid 2000s Vauxhalls come with natty little modular relay holders that clip to each other, so you can build your own relay blocks relatively easily. Again, cheap from breakers.