Back in the 90's, the overdrive inhibit switch wiring burnt out, possibly due to the gearbox getting too hot. The car was taken into a specialist garage where they charged a lot of money for fixing the problem. I've now seen the fix. The over-drive switch wiring was pulled out of the loom near the fuse box, the offending wires out to the switch cut off and the two stubs soldered together and covered with a bit of sticky tape. Result, the overdrive can be switched in any gear. Including reverse, which will ruin the overdrive. Great!
Then I looked at the reverse light switch wiring, which first of all, doesn't go to the reverse light switch! It goes to the overdrive inhibit switch, so the reverse lights come on in 3rd and 4th. It's replacement wiring, domestic red and black twin core, running in a bit of domestic flexi-conduit. Interesting. Not very useful, though. And the reverse lights only came on in 3rd and 4th in theory. In practice, they stayed resolutely dark, together with the boot interior lights and the fuel tank gauge.
So I looked at the wiring loom running through the right hand rear wing, and found it had been burnt by recent welding work, something the welder hadn't admitted to. Instead, he'd found a bit of old wiring loom and patched it in, badly. The bit he patched in had breaks in several of the cables.
That was fixed, and now we have reverse lights in 3rd and 4th, as predicted. Plans are made to drop the gearbox and fix the two switches.
So much still to do on this job, and we have a two day rally we hope to attend, beginning of September!
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