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MG TD TF 1500 - 52 MG-TD Wiring Harness

Hello - I just purchased a 1952 MG-TD. It is in OK shape, and runs. There are some electrical issues - The headlights do not light and the horns do not work - I have check wiring diagram and fuses.. The issue I believe is the wiring harness is in very bad shape some connectors are not together, some connectors feel warm(!) - It is very brittle and probably the cause of some of these things not working. I am a Mechanical Engineer and feel replacing it would not be difficult - Here is my question - the Moss replacement is about $300 +/- I was thinking of making my own - Am I crazy? Would it be worth it - I think I could do as the wiring is very basic - I have wired automated machines in my career and some are much more complicated that the TD Wiring - Anybody have ant experience doing this? Thanks Scott
Scott Cleveland

Hey,
You can do it yourself easily. Just buy all the wiring from British Wiring in IL and go for it. They sell harnesses but they will also sell all the necessary wires separate in either cloth or poly. There is also a good source for color coded wire diagrams. British Wiring sells the wires in the proper color coding. Doing my BSA was a cinche using their wires, and a friend of mine did his TD using their wires.
Greg & Grimm
G.J. Cenzer

Yes you can make your own harness. I made a harness for my brother's '69 Checker from wires out of a junked Impala when we were in high school. The new harnesses are beautiful and the cloth ones are as original. Most of the correct connectors are already installed. Guess it depends whether you have more time or $! George
George Butz

Ok, so now that were talking about wiring harness's, I will need to purchase a complete harness including the dash for my TF. I was thinking about purchasing it from Rhode Island Wiring. Any comments from anybody would be welcome.

Thanks,
LaVerne
LED DOWNEY

One can make their own wiring harness without too much problem. Myquestion is why? I spent 39 years working in electronics and know that I would not want to make my own harness, expecially at the price ready made one are available for. By the time one purchases all the properly color coded wire, the connectors and other bits and pieces, they are going to be in the same price range, plus they will have numerous hours of putting it all together. Instead of purchasing all the items from British Wiring, get a ready made harness from them. If there are any modifications that you want to make to the basic harness, talk to them about it, they are very aminable to custom making a harness to the customer's specification and will tell the customer if the modification they want is a bad idea and why.

Rhoad Island Wiring is a business that I have heard of, but have no experience with, so I can't comment on their products. I have done business with British Wiring and have allways been treated very well by people who are extremely knowledgable about the wiring of MGs. Good luck - Dave
David DuBois

Hi Scott
I agree with David you can certainly make your own wiring harness, but I don't see you saving any money. And you certainly won't save any time. Most electrical supply houses want to sell you color coded wire in 500 ft. spools. You need about 25 to 30 different color codes. Each run is about 25 feet, so you will have about 475 feet left from each spool. Buy a correct harness for your car from one of the recommended suppliers. When every things is the right length and goes to the correct application and out the correct hole you will be glad you did. I used Rhode Inland Wiring Service (www.riwire.com) on my last TD and was very pleased with the fit and the braided cloth in the correct color. The car before that I had a wiring harness from Moss that was not braided, I sent it to them and they braided it and sent it back to me . Very reasonable price wise and the work was outstanding. Hope this helps John
John C. Hambleton III

Scott, as John pointed out, it is a very expensive proposition. You'll notice that the TD Workshop Manual (page N.20) lists 66 possible cable colors. I'll venture a guess that the TD uses a bit less than half of them. That can be expensive. You can cut out the middle man and deal directly with British Wiring. http://www.britishwiring.com/ I'm afraid that I've never heard of Rhode Island Wiring, and I'm in the neighborhood. Most of our sources (Moss included) resell British Wiring's products.
Bud Krueger

British wiring will sell the wire by the meter, which would make a do it yourself harness a bit less expensive than having to buy a complete spool of each color. I would still go with a ready made harness, by either Rhoad Island Wiring or British Wiring. I know British wiring is good and everybody who has dealt with Rhoad Island Wiring have had good thngs to say about them, so I suspect that it is a coin toss. Good luck - Dave
David DuBois

I bought the Moss wiring loom and it was very easy to install and very good. It comes either cloth or vynal wrapped. I went with the cloth and had no problem since it is all correct as far as the colors go.
Tom

I re-did mine several years ago using nylon braiding and removing the coroded and multi-colored "napa" butt splices left for me by the "DPO". Worked very well as it allowed me to make a few changes, (Extra fusing and some other"improvements" that I added to a cad dwg for my car). I made the connections for "wings" all inside the engine compartment and boot area using "correct" soldier type connections. This made it very easy to "unplug" the wings to remove them and gave me a great place to trouble shoot any problems in the system. Left a "C" size copy of "my diagram" with the shop working on my car and showed them where to "unplug". This would have worked well had they not decided to "cut" the wires 3 feet "behind" where it was pluged in! Really quite simple had somebody just unpluged the correct colors. (as in yellow to yellow, green to green ect ect) I am still not sure why when they butt spliced the mess they made back together they made the decision to connect "red to black" "green to yellow" ect ect. It was interesting to blow the horn and get left driving lamp and "low tone", turnning on the fog lamp comming home in heavy fog the other night resulted in "hi tone" and fog lamp. It took a little longer to figure out I needed to have my reversing lamp on for wippers to work!
Cheers,
David 55 TF1500 #7427
David Sheward

We once had a radio installed in a '55 Monarch (Canadian Mercury) at a little accessory shop. Think the installer's were Daryll and Daryll....anyway, we only had the radio working when we turned on the windshield wipers.....
gordon lawson - TD 27667

Rhode Island Wiring Service, Inc. is indeed for real, and then some. Today was a perfect day for some TD'ing so I added another 210 miles onto Lazarus' odometer and took a trip to West Kingston, Rhode Island. I strongly suggest that all of you take a look at http://www.riwire.com/ I'm going to start a fresh thread about what I learned today.
Bud Krueger

This thread was discussed between 20/08/2005 and 22/08/2005

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