Amateur Restoration of a 1960 Morris Mini

[BruceK]

My '88 Mini had the ballast built into the wire running to the coil. It's been 7 or 8 years since I fitted an electronic distributor and I had to unwrap the loom with the wire to the coil and trace it back 2-3 feet ( at least!) toward the firewall to get to part in the loom with the wire before the ballast had been fitted. I ended up just running my own new wire along side the other existing wire down to the coil in case I ever wanted to switch back to using a ballast.

[Dan Moffet]

My '88 Mini had the ballast built into the wire running to the coil. It's been 7 or 8 years since I fitted an electronic distributor and I had to unwrap the loom with the wire to the coil and trace it back 2-3 feet ( at least!) toward the firewall to get to part in the loom with the wire before the ballast had been fitted. I ended up just running my own new wire along side the other existing wire down to the coil in case I ever wanted to switch back to using a ballast.

My 1980's era Mini has the same ballasted system. Much more than 8 years ago, I installed a first generation 123 Ignition system for Mini. If I recall correctly, the options were with or without vacuum advance,, but they'd both run ballasted or unballasted. I did not have to change or add a wire. It would run on either voltage. I presume it has the capacity to detect input voltage. I suppose during starting it accepts the full 12V, then runs on 8-9V of the ballasted circuit.