Disclaimer and Credit

Firstly I must give credit to Adam reeves, who produced an initial guide as part of his Westfield build
project ( http://www.westfieldbuild.com/builddiary0802.htm ). I used the information from his
website and extended the guide.

I am not an electrician; hence I have created this guide for novice/non-electrician people (like
myself).

When installing new wires please ensure you are using a wire the correct amp capacity. For spot
lights, fog light, main beam lights and the rear heated screen always use (28/0.30mm, 2mm2, 25 amp
cable). It may also be useful to install an in-line fuse for these devices to ensure any shortage does
not impact the operation of other devices.

Required Components/Tools
2W1K resistor X 1 per switch (optional)

2W4K7 resistor X 1 per switch

P600A or P600B Diode X 1 per switch

N5408 Diode X 1 per switch

Black wire (16/0.20mm, 0.5mm2, 11amp) X 12in/35cm per switch

Red/Green wire (16/0.20mm, 0.5mm2, 11amp or higher) X 12in/35cm per switch

4 Small (2.8 mm) female terminal connectors 4 per switch (6 for hazard)

Various size heat shrink or insulation tape

Good terminal crimping tool

12v or 9v battery for testing

Information
The Savage button’s LED is quite bright and can be distractive if you have too many on during the
night. To reduce the brightness I use the 2W1K resistor, this dims the LED slightly and produces a
softer light. It can be reduced further if used with 2W2K resistor.

One option is to illuminate the LED (dimmed mode) when the car lights are on, and full illumination
when the actual switch is turned on. For this effect we use the 2W4K7 resistor.

One of the problem when wiring the switch so we 2 level illumination (as stated above) is that when
power is fed to the LED it can also be fed to the device being powered by the switch, in another
words if the side lights are turned on all the other devices will be turned on while the respective
buttons are switched off. To prevent this issue we use the diodes which act as a gateway to prevent
power travel between the various feeds. There are 2 different diodes used, each has a different amp
rating.

Most of the switches can be wired as per the instruction below. The exceptions, such as hazard and
ground/earth based switches are listed individually.

The guide and any wire colours stated are based on the wiring diagram for a 1979 Mini Special
(diagram 15) from the Haynes manual.
Instruction
Loom Preparation
Solder a 2W4K resistor to N5x Diode (combo1).

Solder a 2W1K resistor P600A diode (combo2).

I solder one combo upside down so when we heat shrink or tape the loom it looks neater.

WIRE 1: Take a small piece (about 4 in/10 cm) of Red/Green wire (typically used for panel lights) and
solder the above 2 combos to the end of the wire. Make sure the silver/line marking on the diodes
is facing toward wire and not the loose end.
WIRE 2: Take another piece (10in/25 cm) of Red/Green wire and solder it to the loose end of the
Combo1 (the one with small
diode).

Heat shrink or tape the newly soldered wire all the way to the top (do not cover the loose part –
combo2).
WIRE 3: Take a piece (around 12 in/35 cm) of the appropriate wire for the device/button you are
working on (for example the main beam lights are Blue/White).

Now you can heat shrink the all soldered wires.

Install the correct terminal connectors. I usually insulate them to prevent any electrical shortage if
the wires are pushed together.
WIRE 4: Install the correct terminal connector to the end of the live feed/source wire (for example
the main beam lights are feed by a Blue wire).

WIRE 5: Take a piece (around 12 in/35 cm) of black wire and install the terminal connector, this will
be used as the earth for the LED.

For neatness you can tape or heat shrink all the wires together.

Connecting the wires to the switch

Here is the diagram as per Savage documentation.

Connect the wires as follow:

LED Terminal A Red/Green wire (WIRE 1)

LED Terminal B ground (WIRE5 ) see connection blocks
Pin 1 feed/source wire (WIRE4)
Pin 2 Device wire WIRE3
WIRE2 (open end) Connect the Red/Green wire (WIRE2) to a panel/instrument light source
see connection blocks
Hazard Light Switch
The hazard light has couple of major differences to the normal wiring:

1. It requires 2 outputs to feed the left and right indicator lights (on my car and most minis
they are Green/White and Green/Red).
2. When the hazard lights are switched on the feed to the indicators needs to be disconnected.

To connect the hazard light proceed with the preparation of Combo1 and Combo2 and connect the
combos to the short Red/Green wire (WIRE1).

Connect the 2 device wires (Green/White and Green/Red) to the end of Combo2. You can always
connect a short wire to the end of Combo2 and then connect to the 2 wires to the new wire.

Connect the feed from the hazard flasher unit (on my car is the Light Green/Black wire) to pin1.

In order to disable/disconnect the indicator flasher feed take the existing wires (Light Green/Brown)
and connect them to pin 1 and 3 on the other side of the switch.

End results:

LED Terminal A Red/Green wire (WIRE 1)

LED Terminal B ground (WIRE5 ) see connection blocks
Pin 1 (printed side) feed/source wire (WIRE4)
Pin 2 (printed side) 2 Device wires (Green/White and Green/Red)
Pin 1 (blank side) Indicator flasher unit (Light Green/Black)
Pin 3 (blank side) Indicator stalk/Switch (Light Green/Black)
WIRE2 (open end) Connect the Red/Green wire (WIRE2) to a panel/instrument light source
see connection blocks

Ground based switches

Some switches like the break test switch connect the ground feed to the switch/light. I have added a
switch to my dash to allow me to turn on the internal lights when I need to (I have replace the
standard lights with LED lights). To get this type of switch working there are 2 methods.

NOTE: For the break test switch you must use method 1, since the other method could confuse the
driver and cause a false alarm and panic.

Method 1: The easy route. There is a problem with this option, when you switch the side lights on
all the other switches will light up apart from this type of switches.

Connect the live (Purple wire) feed to terminal A of the LED. Take a black wire and connect it to pin
1 and a ground feed (the ground connection block if you have one).

Take a small black wire and connect it to Terminal B of the LED. Take another black wire and
connect it to pin 2 of the switch. Finally take the appropriate device wire (for break test on my car it
is the Black/White wire) and join it with the wires going to terminal B and pin 2. End results:
Terminal A Live (+) feed, Purple wire
Terminal B Feed to the device (Black/White) and feed from
Terminal 2 (Black).
Pin 1 Connected to Ground (-)

Method 2: Slightly more work but allows you to have to switch illuminated (dim) when the side
lights are on. For this method you would require a small relay.

Create a standard loom as above with any colour wiring you like. Connect the wires as per the
standard switch (defined above) apart from the feed that goes to the device (from pin 2).

Take the feed from pin2 and connect it to terminal 86 (positive terminal) of the relay. Connect a
black wire from ground (-) to terminal 85 (negative terminal) and terminal 30 of the relay. Connect
the wire from/to the device to terminal 87 of the relay.

Using this method the relay will connect the ground wire to the device once the switch is turned on.

End results:

LED Terminal A Red/Green wire (WIRE 1)

LED Terminal B ground (WIRE5 ) see connection blocks
Pin 1 Live (+) (WIRE4)
Pin 2 WIRE3 to Relay
WIRE2 (open end) Connect the Red/Green wire (WIRE2) to a panel/instrument light source
see connection blocks

Relay connections

Terminal 87 Wire to device

Terminal 86 WIRE3 from pin2 of the switch
Terminal 85 Ground (-)
Terminal 30 Ground (-)
Connection Block
If you are installing a few lights it might be a good idea to connect all the ground (WIRE5) and the
panel light (WIRE2) wires to connection block and then connect each of the blocks to the
appropriate part of the electrical system. Below is a picture of the 2 blocks I used to connect around
8 switches together.

The Red/Green block has a 10A inline fuse so any electrical shortage in the LEDs will only impact the
LED of the switches and not the rest of the instrument panel lights or the operation of the switch.

Testing the loom

To test standard switches:

Connect a wire from negative (-) terminal of the battery to the black wire on Terminal A (or the
ground connection block if you are using one).

Connect a wire from the positive (+) terminal of the battery to the Red/Green wire (WIRE2 open
end). This should switch the LED on in dim mode.

Connect the wire from positive (+) terminal to Terminal 1 of the switch and push the switch. This
should switch the LED on in full brightness mode.
Here is an example of all the lights connected and switched off. The blue switch at the bottom is for
the internal lights and has been connected for ground feed to the lights (see Ground based switches
section above).

After turning on the side light switch on:

As you can see the top 2 switches are turned on so they are brighter that the others.
Links:

Source reference material for this guide: http://www.westfieldbuild.com/builddiary0802.htm

Wires, terminal connectors, relays and tools: http://www.vehicle-wiring-products.eu

Resistors, diodes and relays: http://uk.rs-online.com

Other useful sites:

http://www.theminiforum.co.uk