Reverse Lights

From memory, a single wire comes down the left side (LHD 69 OTS) in the harness with the interior lamp and the petrol tank wires etc. It then serves the left reverse light and daisy-chains over to the right light. The wires are partly fed through the blind cavity directly over the horizontal panel to which the lamps are bolted but behind the vertical panel at the back centre of the boot. My antenna is on the right side and i don't recall the wires being anywhere near that. Dunno, could be wrong, it was 18 months ago...

Steve & Peter,

Here is what I found so far. From Steve's pictures, I found the harness "coming in" at the tunnel. Key words are "coming in". At first look, I thought the wires were going from the engine compartment into the tunnel and to the reverse light switch. Not the case. The wires going through the tunnel are going "from" the switch to the harness down the right side of the car and finally to the reverse lights. As of yet I have not found the wires in the trunk area but my guess is they are in the bundle around the power antenna.
Many thanks to both of you for the kind of help you don't find just anywhere!

Regards,

Guys,
Thanks for the replys. I will be in the shop for a while this afternoon and I will check it out.

Regards,

From memory the reverse light wires run through a small grommet in the centre of the vbell housing part of the transmission tunnel, above the detachable transmission cover behind the radio. You should be able to see them behind the radio console.

For what it's worth (though it may be a bit late if you've just bought new lights) I got rid of the awful little MG tack-on reversing lights by using Lotus lamp clusters. These are identical to the S2/S3 lamps (at least the RoW versions) except they incorporate a reversing lamp each side and a clear section in the lens over that bulb. You could even use one side as a reversing light and the other side red as a fog light. I alo left off the stainless rear finisher under the bumper and raised my numberplate so I could use Series 1 resonators. This makes the whole back end look much neater and less a*se-heavy IMHO. You can just about see the effect in the third photo here;

http://www.jag-lovers.org/snaps/snap_view.php3?id=1293562523

The actual lamp may show up on this post if I did the upload correctly.

Pete

I have just realized that I responded to the e mail!! Yes the switch is on top. Have you located the feed wire from the fuse, and the back to the lights? If so you can trace them to the switch usually they come along the right side from a grommet in the tunnel. It would be unusual if it were disconnected as it is so out of the way. Unless of course someone had the tunnel cover off. I would search around carefully for the wires before opening up the top.

-----Original Message-----
>From: jcna.forumsjcna.com
>Sent: Jan 1, 2012 6:29 PM
>To: bonnettobootearthlink.net
>Subject: [E-Type forum] Reverse Lights

Hi Phil
I have found 2 pictures that I believe will help you out. Unfortunately the size of the pix are too large to upload into the forum. If you send me an e-mail to me at mart4669comcast.net I will reply with the pix.

Hi Steve,

Pictures would be great!!

The owner I purchased from said it never had back-up lights but as we know DOT required them in 1971. So I am still trying to piece the story together. Earlier I remember a discussion where George C. stated something like... many people removed them to paint the car, forgot to put them back on and then realized what a pain it is to re-install them so they just left them off. This could be what happened to my car.

I appreciate your help.

after further review it may not be necessary to remove the center console (which is a bit of a pain).Unless the car has been molested in some way, the switch should be there already and the wiring in place already. If my memory serves me correctly, the wires run up the drivers side of the opening for the bell housing and go through the firewall into the cabin. I will look to see if I have a picture that will help

Well you are exactly right on the location. it is on the top of the gear box. if you remove the center console on the interior of the car, there will be a cover that is removable, that will expose the top of the transmission and the switch will be visible. hope it helps