Hello, I replaced all of the wiring in my '65 Cooper with an Autosparks cloth wrap (black with blue interwoven) proper color coded UK Mini harness.

The wiring that came with the car from Australia was mostly a clump of all black wires with a few orange ones and a red one or two thrown in. What surprised me was that most of the wire bundles were neatly wrapped in PVC or electrical tape for the length of the harness, and I think I had read somewhere that some Australian Minis had PVC taped looms from the factory? I had a hard time understanding why someone would have redone the wiring with all black wires at some point and taken the care to wrap it all neatly, but not bothered to properly color code the wires to the diagram.

I've not found much information about wiring harnesses used in Zetland manufactured Minis. Were these the same as the harnesses going in UK cars at the time, or were they different harnesses manufactured in Australia? What I pulled out wasn't a factory harness, was it?

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The Australian made cars used locally made harnesses that used the normal Lucas colours.
There were some differences to suit local conditions and locally made equipment.
The local harnesses were wrapped in tape but they didn't usually feature all black wires.

I sincerely doubt it. Wiring looms/harnesses seem to be one of the most butchered and molested components in minis, from my experience.

I believe the Oz harnesses were pvc taped when they were manufactured locally to meet local content targets. Later on, it seems Leyland were trying to save every cent on each car and circa 1970 the harnesses were not fully covered in tape, just bound in sections leaving the colour coded wires mostly exposed.

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1967 Cooper S - new front bearings to do.
1965 Cooper S shell - Slow progress. No time or money!
1966 Deluxe- next rustoration!
Mk 2 & XJ6 Jags. Less said the better.

All Black wires ? To me that sounds like another shortcut some one took to save himself some pennies. Mini wiring normally has the standard LUCAS Color coded cables. If it is Black you have the wires will not carry the correct smoke from component to component.

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DID I MENTION THAT I AM THE BEST SUPPLIER FOR MINI ELECTRICAL PARTS AND REPAIRS?
"Let us remove your "SHORTS"

That would be close to correct for your Cooper. Early Aussie minis had the black cloth bound harness from the UK with the colour flecks interwoven ,as evidenced by quite a few early examples I have seen with Lucas England on them .Probably about a third of the wires in these early harness's had the braided type covering,with the remainder being the PVC covered type ,as in later harness's. The black taped Aussie harness came later ,it would seem the changeover occured around 1966 - 1967,although its very hard to determine exactly which year as I have seen original one owner 1967 minis with the cloth bound harness and yet my 1966 mini has its original Aussie made black taped harness. The later mini K and Mk2 Cooper S had only a partially taped harness ,with the wires visible in quite a few places,usually held together with white cloth tape

Thanks for the helpful information. Even if it had turned out that what I pulled out of the car was original (which I doubted), I was going to put in a proper color coded harness regardless. Aside from eliminating all of the poor connections and shorts, the ease of plugging everything in according to the diagram, and every wire terminating at the correct location made doing the wiring job enjoyable.

I'm glad the cloth wrapped harness is close to what would have originally come in the car as this is an added bonus.

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I recently bought 2 cloth bound harnesses from Somerford Mini in the UK for my Morris 850 and 997 Cooper .I was very very pleased with them ,they match the originals perfectly right down to the correct type connectors and insulating covers.If you put them next to the original harness's it is hard to pick the original from the repro,except of course the originals are a lot older and worse for wear The 2 of them even with freight from the UK cost less than the price of one here in Oz . I have seen some of the Oz made ones from different manufacturers,supposedly to suit early mini's and they are poor quality and not very original looking. Check Somerfords out below ,click on buy now to see price


Edit : No im not getting commission

http://www.somerfordmini.co.uk/eshop/in ... page&id=90