My Bedford Wiring Is A Disgrace!

[ben]

good luck.. youll need it. i ended up ripping everything out and put in a good standard wiring loom. i had sparks coming from the indicator stalk:))

[Hashman]

funnily enough it seems the indicator stalk might be the culprit.  driving home with one light....turned on highbeams..turned them off and had NO LIGHTS!

[Rogue Trooper]

Those indicator stalks were a nightmare. I remember I had to run a bridging wire to get my high beam running many years ago when GM wanted to charge me $250 for a new one. Good ones were like hen's teeth even back then. I was wandering through a wreckers about 10 years ago and spotted one while I was looking for something else so jumped on it but it's just sat around since then and I no longer need it seeing as I've swapped steering columns now.

[Warren]

I think it might be a common problem with the indicator stalk, either the contacts wear and cause resistance,  or people change headlights and then it draws to many amps.

Mine has an old style floor mounted dipper switch, but you can still smell that warm insulator smell when the lights are on

Warren

[neville668bartos]

depends what high/low beam switch ya have? i have the dimmer switch on the floor near the cluch pedal and had the same trouble but in reverse, the high didn't work. turns out it was a dodgy conection on the floor switch. don't know if that helps...

[Rothu]

Switches. I had the same problem, so just took apart the stalk indicator and polished the contacts.
Also the best thing to do with lights is run relays for them.
Fit a high conducting wire from the battery to a push blade fuse box mounted in engine bay then run wires to relays for the lights. This bypasses electricity going all the way through the system, through the stalk and just sends power to the lights avoiding over loading the sub-standard Lucas nightmare.

You know why Poms drink warm beer? They only have Lucas refrigerators!

[cfjeff]

Yep have had many probs in early days of CF with lights. Indicator stalk is the most common prob in CF's, most complain about switching to high and all lights go out. As others have already stated are becoming rare as but remember most BMC lucas stuff is pretty much the same only different plugs on the end, examples are chevette, viva, even the likes of triumph. The good thing is most lucas looms etc all have much the same wiring colour code. If you spend enough time on these looms you will soon learn the colours off the top of your head. I have all the cf one colour code memorised so I can look at a wire colour in a standard CF loom and tell you where it goes to, now how sad is that lol. Maybe I've spent too much time on my bedford and getting to know it lol.

[Smartalec]

my lights started having problems, but i tracked it down to the connections on the back of the fuses.
the only real way is to rewire the hole bedford with relays for all lights (like moden cars)
realy who use's a fuse for left side low an another for right side low, an its the same for tail an high beams..

i also herd my lighting stick is from a ford, no idea what model. (will be getting changed) to a ford switch (i like the look)

i know my indicator stick is from a ea ford. (installed it myself)

[Hashman]

tidyed up all the wiring behind the intrument cluster and the dash pod some one had built and also "fiddled" with the fuse plate and now everything seems to be working.   who the hell would use 3 different colors on a ground wire?  had me swearing my head off for a few hours!

[ben]

me lol. whatever wires are handy lol..

ben