Easy question for you all...

The game I'm playing here is fixing up a nice rusty shell using a few boxes of unrelated broken parts and a complete absence of skills. But that doesn't matter right now, all I want to know is:

Which way up do toggles switches go?

Flick up to turn on or down to turn on? I'm asking because I'm not entirely confident the switches on my panel are in the right spots.

Here's a picture:



Assuming I replace that nice switch on the left with a heater cable (and a big washer to blank out the hole someone has kindly torn for the switch), what's the correct order of switches?

I'm guessing:

Heater cable
Wipers
Ignition
Lights
Choke

That right?

the panel is correct way up (choke on the right)

Down is ON.

_________________
Dave K.
1979 Moke Californian + 1981 'Coke' Moke

Thanks Dave for that quick response.

Just for my complete understanding, let's take a single speed wiper switch as an example (or any other two position switch). When you say down is on, does that mean pointing downward (in which case off is pointing straight out) or down but pointing straight out (in which case off is pointing upward). Sorry if that's getting confusing.

If the panel in the picture's around the right way, then it sounds like the latter, and the switches are shown turned on. Correct?

i'm pretty sure on all my Minis, when the switch is right up, it's off. For the wiper that would mean that in the middle is on.

however, i have seen some Minis with switches around the other way.

_________________
Saxon Green 850: http://www.ausmini.com/forums/viewtopic.php?t=62641
Nightfire Red 850: http://www.ausmini.com/forums/viewtopic.php?t=66555

Perfect, thanks.

Early cars with the square wiper motor had wiper switch on LHS of ignition switch
Later cars with round type Australian motor had wiper switch on RHS of ignition switch.

The later wiper motor uses a different switch also I think as the selfparking mechanism works in a different way.

The panels and switches are designed so that in some cases they may only go one way.

So if you have a mixture of bits and pieces you may need to try and work out what bits are right for your car.

To further confuse issues the handbook from this period has some errors in it regarding this also.

This post is worth a read for a full explanation

http://www.ausmini.com/forums/viewtopic.php?t=59942&highlight=wiper

_________________

68 Morris Cooper S Mk1 (*ex 78 1275 LS 4th last built, 70 Morris 1500 OHC & 70 MiniMatic)

Thanks phillb for the extra detail. That other thread made interesting reading. I didn't see it earlier - I need to work on my searching skills.

I think of the bits and pieces I have, very few are right for my car, so not too worried about originality, just wanted to get things right where it's easy. It doesn't help that some of the overseas suppliers seem to have a policy of always sending the wrong items, based on the (generally correct) assumption that I can't be bothered returning them. I was thinking if the switches are in the wrong order I'd be able to flip the panel over, but as you point out it makes no difference if I want the switches to be the right way up.

There seem to be a few variations, anyway. Also wasn't aware many cars didn't have the heater. Maybe I wouldn't have spent so much time trying to jam a Clubman heater in otherwise - that thing seems to take up as much room as an extra passenger. As for switches, I'll keep the original wipers on the left layout, especially since that's the way my holes are cut. Actually I'll be using an MG switch for the wipers since I have a two speed motor from a Clubman. The champions in this forum have already worked it all out some time ago. Detail here:

http://www.ausmini.com/forums/viewtopic.php?t=49056

The washer pump I'll set into the right side wheel arch since I reckon that'll look better. If it turns out to be hard to use I'll fit an extra tentacle behind my right shoulder.

One other interesting point was made in the other post you mentioned, phillb. It seems that girlfriends, partners, etc. will invariably assist the driver in switching off the wipers when they feel the drizzle has reduced to a level that doesn't warrant wipage. This is unavoidable. When I used to get around in an ancient Audi the fact that the wipers were controlled by the right hand column stalk never worried my girlfriend at the time. I reason keeping the switch as close as possible to the passenger will make this phenomenon less annoying.

No Problem, yes that was funny, all started with me flipping thru an original handbook and thinking my switches were wrong, then it turned out the handbook was wrong.



It gets a little tricky if your car is Aussie built. We had pretty high local content and some parts from England may not compatable.

Highly recommend getting a copy of Mini Kings parts catalogue which covers Aussie parts and also helps to figure what goes where and whats missing.

What model Mini are you working on?

_________________

68 Morris Cooper S Mk1 (*ex 78 1275 LS 4th last built, 70 Morris 1500 OHC & 70 MiniMatic)

Haha, yes that's my problem. My car is a Traveller (sort of), but most of the parts I have are from Australian cars. It'll be a bit unique.

Good stuff, I think travellers are great, looks like the next Mini Experience Magazine will have a article on the traveller so that will be worth reading.

There was a 78 Clubman van recently for sale that was discussed on the forum that supposedly was a one off factory proto-type by Leyland Australia so we must of come close to getting our own.

see http://www.ausmini.com/forums/viewtopic ... +traveller

_________________

68 Morris Cooper S Mk1 (*ex 78 1275 LS 4th last built, 70 Morris 1500 OHC & 70 MiniMatic)