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Triumph TR3 - OD switch

Hi Guys:
I have just finished the wiring for my OD.I am using the original toggle switch and I am wondering if anybody knows if the toggle moves up or down to engage the OD.I have a feeling that it might be tripped accidentally upwards rather than downwards.However please let me have some of your wisdom.
Chuck

I have mine in what I logically think is correct. first of all, I say it has always been like this. No-one ever docked me points at a concours but I had a deep discussion about it with a judge once.

To turn a light on when you enter a dark room, you flip the light switch up. My O/D swithch is like that. To flip into O/D, I flip the switch up. Also the "Overdrive" name is visible from the driver's seat in left hand drive cars. It wouldn't make sense that you have to be outside the driver's door looking towards the center of the car to read this.

Don Elliott, 1958 TR3A
Don Elliott

For lack of a better resource, I looked in Bill Piggot's book last night. There is one close up photo of a toggle type switch which I beleive is shown from the right looking towards the outside of a left hand drive car. The switch is in the "up" position, which I am assuming to be "off" if the car is indeed not running while being photographed. However, I would agree w/ Don in the use of the light switch logic.
I guess if you are wiring it yourself, you could choose either.

What did this judge say anyway, Don?

M.G. (not the car) '56 TR3
Mike Gambordella

The judge quoted that photo from the book. I replied that there is no proof that the guy who restored that TR actually did it right. If you turn the switch up-side down, it will rear "Overdrive" from the RHD driver's seat. So on the left side, it would be up-side down, relative to the British side. If you take the switch apart, you have the choice of making it click on by flipping the lever up or down, depending on how you wire it. I think the British photo may be correct and the wiring wrong, but one can also leave the switch in the on position with the car parked for the photo.

He accepted my logic.

Don Elliott, 1958 TR3A
Don Elliott

This thread was discussed between 19/02/2004 and 20/02/2004

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