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Eddie was right!

We're in the closing stages of refurbishing our barn find 8v Kat,

some minor issues remain to sort out. One was the lights.

This car had working headlights and winkers, but no side or rear lights, and no sidelight warning light on the dash. I tested all the terminals, and there was no life.

I decided the fault lay in the steering column switch, so I removed the steering wheel and shroud to inspect the switch. My test light confirmed that the side light part of the switch wasn't working, so I rang Eddie at AECar.

Eddie told me there was a difference between the Swiss 8v Kat switch and the ordinary 16v switch. He wasn't sure what it was, there is a Kat switch with a different part no. listed, but he didn't have one in stock anyway.

So I ordered a 16v switch, how different could it be?

Something to think about!

A dirty kneefull of switches

Well, not much different, but just different enough to cause some careful thought.

The lights connection from the Kat switch has a 3 pin plug, the 16v has a 2 pin item. The Kat has a blue and black live wire input, a green output wire for the headlights, and a green and black wire which seems to be for the sidelights. The 16v looks to make do with

1 gay blue and pink wire for both lights, leaving the green/black wire redundant.

I wonder what Swiss regulation required this alteration?

I tested all the functions, and everything worked the same with one wire as with the kat's two wires.

I decided to keep the original 3way plug connecting to the car. The blue/black input wire uses the same big spade clip terminal, so I cut the remaining green and green/black wires and joined the headlamp feed to the only wire coming out of the new switch. This left the old green/black wire unused, so I made this safe with insulating tape, but kept the wire long in case of future problems.

I tested all the switch functions at every stage, and it kept working correctly. I assembled the steering column and cowl, and fitted the wheel, everything worked well, all the indicator lights work on the dash too.

That was a good result, I'm glad Eddie warned that there was an issue, so I was prepared for some thinking!

This is the new 16v switch with the Kat

live feed fitted, and the only lights wire is connected to the old 3 pin plug. The spare green wire now goes to the flasher switch.

The winker and wiper plugs were almost the same, just a little trimming of plastic needed

for the multiplugs to fit.

Main lights plug now ready to connect to the car.

This is the new switch fitted, 2 wires

into the 3 way plug, with the green/black wire now spare.

This is the only wire left over, the live feed from the new switch, I destroyed its 2 way plug to see what worked.

The dash lights now all work, the hi beam light didn't work before, a previous owner had 'rewired' new hi beam lights in.

I notice the reserve fuel warning is even more pessimistic

than usual! Heaven knows why!