Horn relay position on squarelights

[AustrianVespaGuy]

Having over a decade in automotive manufacturing, I highly doubt that this was controlled on the 1970s production line.  Most likely scenario that I can envision is that one operator pulled and clipped in the harness (with the order arbitrary), another operator further on would have plugged in the relays, and then finally the electrical system would (maybe) be tested towards the end of the line.  But since the relays are all the same, and as long as everything functioned properly, no one would have any reason to try to control which one went in which slot, nor have a reason to 'correct' it if the were found in a different order than any 'standard' that may or may not have existed.  With slightly different pigtail lengths for each one I suspect a certain order is more common than others, but again there really wouldn't be any motivation for consistency at the point of assembly, nor anything that would drive check/correcting this later on.  Sorry @mike!

[02Les]

2 hours ago, AustrianVespaGuy said:

Having over a decade in automotive manufacturing, I highly doubt that this was controlled on the 1970s production line.  Most likely scenario that I can envision is that one operator pulled and clipped in the harness (with the order arbitrary), another operator further on would have plugged in the relays, and then finally the electrical system would (maybe) be tested towards the end of the line.  But since the relays are all the same, and as long as everything functioned properly, no one would have any reason to try to control which one went in which slot, nor have a reason to 'correct' it if the were found in a different order than any 'standard' that may or may not have existed.  With slightly different pigtail lengths for each one I suspect a certain order is more common than others, but again there really wouldn't be any motivation for consistency at the point of assembly, nor anything that would drive check/correcting this later on.  Sorry @mike!

 

That doesn't sound very German?

[Conserv]

17 minutes ago, 02Les said:

 

That doesn't sound very German?

 

Sounds almost....Italian, ca. 1958.... ?

 

Best regards,

 

Steve

 

[AustrianVespaGuy]

5 hours ago, 02Les said:

That doesn't sound very German

Yes and no, remember Germans are logical; but they focus on what matters.  I doubt they shipped many cars with the wrong instrument cluster for example.  But imagine if you were changing out the whole wiring harness in your car.  You'd pull the harness, pop the connectors in whichever slots they seemed to line up with, plug in the relays, and if everything worked, you probably wouldn't think twice about it.  Same thing on the assembly line, but their time is much, much more valuable, and I don't think they would have wasted it on something isn't functionally relevant, and I maintain that IS rather German!  But still just speculation on my part of course.  Now the Italians in '58 I suspect shipped right hand drive cars to left hand drive countries, and sometimes forgot the wiring harness completely! JK

[Son of Marty]

5 hours ago, 02Les said:

 

That doesn't sound very German?

Remember a lot of the labor assembling these cars was part of Germany's guest labor program

[HBChris]

Even on the e3 and e9 the horn relay is closest to the driver, next comes hi beam.  Through 73 neither had a low beam relay, in 74 the lo beam relay was added but placed under the dash, go figure.  The open slot was nearest the headlights for the fog relay if added.

 

My point is that all three squarelights I have owned had the horn relay nearest the driver.