Question
When we first moved to our house we had 4 zones.  Two additional zones were added a few years later (my guess wire leads #2 & #3 below).

In the process of re-arranging my workbench 2 wires came loose inside the timer box and I can't figure out where they need to go.

PROBLEMS:  White wire in Lead #3 and Black wire in Lead #4)

Lead #1: Transformer/power (No problem)

Lead #2: A red and white wire in a black housing (No problem)
        Red is connected to terminal 5, White to COM

Lead #3: A red and white wire in a black housing
        (PROBLEM WIRE NUMBER ONE)
        Red is connected to COM, White - my guess is it should
        be connected to terminal 6 - If I'm correct, should Red
        go to terminal 6 and White go to COM to be consistent
        with Lead #2, or vice versa?) Whites to COM, Reds to #s.
        Or Reds to COM and Whites to #s, or doesn't matter?

Lead #4: 5 colored wires in a black housing
        Red - connected to terminal 1
        White - connected to terminal 2
        Green - connected to terminal 3
        Blue - connected to terminal 4
        Black - (PROBLEM WIRE NUMBER TWO)

Can you help me identify where these two wires need to be connected?

Thank You for your time and patience!

Answer
Hey Tom, for our company, we always use white as the common, and the colored wires as the hot leads. In your situation, lead #3, I would hook the white to the common, and red to terminal #6. As for the lead #4, I would put the white wire to the common, and the black wire to the #2 terminal. The problem is, I could not tell you if the white is being used as the common, unless I see the valves and how the wires are hooked up at the valves. What you can do, is go to your valves, the common wire, will be the wire that 1 lead from each solenoid is hooked to, hence the name common wire. For instance, lets say you have 3 valves together. One wire from each solenoid will hook to 1 wire from the other 2 valves, thus there will be 3 wires (one from each valve) hooked to one wire, this is your common wire, see if this wire is white, black, etc. and make sure this is the wire in the controller that is hooked to the common terminal. The other colored wires will be  connected to the other wire from the solenoids, but only to one wire and not touching the common wire. Good luck and have a great day.