1962 OTS engine bay & dash board new wiring loom

[GSR 54D]

Hi all

I’m looking to renew the engine and dash original wiring loom on a 1962 LHD OTS which is evidently tired. The car has been converted to negative earth and has an alternator along with Ray Livingstone’s EDIS conversion. My plan is to possible convert to RHD some time in the future so would like to know from anyone who has re wired before whether its possible to use a RHD wiring loom with the car temporarily staying LHD?
Another thought is to consider using a RHD 4.2 loom which is designed for an alternator instead of generator with regulator. Although this idea isn’t my first choice on the basis the loom may be quite different from a 3.8 and I’d like to stay fairly original thinking it would be simpler for future work etc.

Any advice gratefully received.

John H.

[Gfhug]

Hi John, have you spoken to autosparks to see if they have any suggestions? Maybe make up an extension kit to use a RHD set with extra wires plugged in to reach LHD?

Hope all is ok with you

Geoff

[cactusman]

You will find it not easy to use a RHD loom on a LHD car without adding wire lengths to quite a few things behind the dash. It can be done but will be messy. If you plan to change the loom now is the time to convert in my opinion. An early 4.2 loom will be generally OK if you are converting to an alternator (there may be minor issues with wire length here and there...the brake light hydraulic switch and brake reservoir float switches springs to mind but I may be wrong....although my view is the conversion is of marginal benefit unless you are adding all sorts of extra electrical ancillaries...both my E and my MG retain their dynamo and I have never had a problem. You can save a bit of power by converting to LED lights (not the headlight bulbs though). Unless you do long journeys at night and spend ages in traffic jams, when you are rolling along on a sunny day electrical consumption is but a hanful of amps at most and a dynamo is more than capable. It is easy to convert a dynamo to negative earth too...

[GSR 54D]

Thanks Julian & Geoff