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MG TD TF 1500 - Wiper Motor Neutral Wire

When I removed my wiper motor for the purpose of cleaning old grease from the interior gears, I noticed a neutral wire hanging next to the two wires which are connected directly to the wiper motor. This bare wire was not attached to anything. My wiper motor did work until it slowed down to a crawl and then just stopped.

What does the neutral wire get connected to? Thanks.
Tim Debes

Tim, if it's a TD that you're talking about, the third is just excess baggage. Only two wires are needed for operation. I get in trouble when I get into things about TFs, but the TF wiring diagram only shows two wires attached to its screenwiper. Bud
Bud Krueger

Yes Bud, it is a TD and thanks for an answer. I'll use a small wire nut to cap it off.
Tim Debes

Tim, any chance that the neutral wire is is a ground braid surrounding the two wires? Some wiring is done with a 2-conductor/shielded cable. The two inner conductors are a small gauge wire. These two wires are stripped and soldered together and used as one wire. The outer braid is then used as the other wire. Any chance that you have this type of cabling? BTW, this cable usually has a gray outer skin and looks just like the OEM cable. That's why it's so common. Bud
Bud Krueger

Tim, any chance that the neutral wire is is a ground braid surrounding the two wires? Some wiring is done with a 2-conductor/shielded cable. The two inner conductors are a small gauge wire. These two wires are stripped and soldered together and used as one wire. The outer braid is then used as the other wire. Any chance that you have this type of cabling? Bud
Bud Krueger

I'm about to reassemble my windscreen & bought a new grey covered wiper wire from AS for about $4. This wire is thin shielded audio wire & was never really designed for TD wiper motors. It's used because the grey covering resembles the original TD wiper wire cable. I've read the approach adopted by other BBS contributors eg join the yellow & red wires to form the power wire & twist the shielding to form the earth wire. Then use some green & black heat shrink to disguise the above. Done that but I'm still not happy.

Found some grey heat shrink on the web from Element 14 part number 1295016. 5 metres for about $5. Using the appropriate black & green automotive wires designed for auto electrical use & available for next to nothing through any auto electrician, I'm now going to cover this pair in the areas that the wiring is visible. Where it runs across the inside top screen rail & where it emerges from the scuttle & disappears into the frame. As there's 5 metres of the stuff I'll probably run it all the way. Picking it up today. Should look at least as good as the audio wire & probably will perform a whole lot better with no risk of shorting out. Cheers.
Peter TD 5801
P Hehir

I bought a number of exact TD wiper motor wires in the early 1970's. They were marketed as European phone cords.
Chris Couper

The grey heat shrink worked pretty well. Bit of a tight fit so not really necessary to shrink it much if at all. Now have original pair of black & green automotive wires with a grey outer. Cheers
Peter TD 5801
P Hehir

Bud and all, I have a gray outer wire cover with a yellow, red and bare wire within but not braided together. It kinda looks like a telephone wire as the wire gauge is small diameter, not very robust.

So should I leave the bare wire hanging, or connect the red and yellow together to one terminal and the bare wire to the other terminal. Thoughts?

Tim Debes

Tom, that sounds a lot like the shielded 2-conductor wire that I've been talking about. Yes, I'd recommend stripping, twisting and soldering the red and yellow together to use as one conductor. Use the bare wire as the other. You'll probably want to use the bare wire as the ground lead. Doubling the small wires will give you a low voltage drop in use. If it were Peter, he'd slip some green tubing over the exposed ends of two-wire pair and some black over the bare wire, but I wouldn't. Bud
Bud Krueger

Bud, I will do as you recommended and thanks. Peter, some day when I have more time I may add the heat shrink but so little red and yellow wire is exposed I may not bother. Thanks!
Tim Debes

I'd use the approach I outlined above Bud. Because the gauge of the original wires were about 5 times larger, apart from the fact that the pair were originally black earth & green power, I'm not at all sure about the capability of the lightweight audio wire to continually handle the power requirements of the wiper motor. For both reasons, originality & functionality, I junked the audio wire. The point is probably moot anyway as most TD owners keep their cars in the garage at the slightest hint of rain. But to each his own. Cheers.
Peter TD 5801
P Hehir

Peter, I went through this when I was doing the restoration work on 'the53'. I probably should have kept the voltage readings, but I didn't. However, I found the voltage drop across the paired audio wires was insignificant, only about a tenth of a volt. On the day I drove the car for delivery it was raining. The wires had no problem handling the current of thewiper motor. Bud
Bud Krueger

This thread was discussed between 12/03/2014 and 15/03/2014

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