Ignition Switch Wiring

[varleym]

In my haste to remove the steering column I omitted to write down which wire went to which connector on the ignition switch. I've looked on a few forums and none of the connector layouts described seem to match mine.

I've put a couple of pictures below but basically there are four male spade connectors on the back of the ignition switch (well five actually as one is a linked 'double' connector), all the same size. In terms of the wires I've got available they are:

Thick white
Thick brown
Thin white/red
Thin brown/orange
Thin white with a piggy back spade connector

Grateful if anyone could assist.

Cheers

Mark

[Bo]

Hi Mark, looking in the workshop manual, it looks like the early diesels had five wires to the ignition whereas the petrol and later (86 on) models only had four. The wire colours you give don't match the manual but why would it, it's a Landrover. One thing that is for sure is that the large brown wire is a feed from the battery via the starter solenoid. The large white wire will be the main switched load which will be position two on the ignition switch if yours is a two stage switch. It will feed the fuse box, brake light switch and battery condition meter (if you have one).
Brown and red is the colour for the ballast resistor feed to the heater plugs, (are you sure yours is brown and orange?) I suspect this is no longer needed as 200tdi's have a timer relay. I would guess that the thin white is for the fuel shut off solenoid (should be white and black) and can be connected to the same terminal as the large white wire. Finally the white and red wire is to the starter motor solenoid to engage it.
Using a meter check the above is correct, then also using a multi, try the different key position an meter the back of the switch to establish which is a common (large brown wire). Once you have established which is the common, meter across from that to the other terminals to establish which is position 2 (connect the large white and small white) try the key in the spring back (start) position and connect the white and red. You may have a spare terminal for position 1, use this for the radio.
I have attached scans of the manual if they are of any help.

[varleym]

Cheers Bo - it did start out life as a 2.25 petrol (according to the V5 it still is!). I've got a multimeter so I'll do some 'experiments' this weekend.

Thanks

Mark