funked electronics..

Post by **kaos** » 18 Nov 2007 02:46 pm

hey chaps.

Right heres the problem.

when my lights are OFF, my brake lights work fine.
When my lights are ON, the drivers side light does not work

When i turn my lights off with brake applied the front headlight on the drivers side stays on.

and just last night, all bulbs are good AFAIK(they were all working properly the otherday) now when i flick to main beam only my passenger side works.

Im looking at earths, but the rear lights earth is passenger side and everything works properly on that side??? Could be under the dash maybe??

Any help appriciated.

Post by **pettaw** » 18 Nov 2007 04:51 pm

That's gotta be an earthing fault. The main places to check are under the dash by the multiplugs that go into the fusebox. There's 4 earths that plug in there. Whilst there check and clean if necessary the multiplugs on the fusebox.

Also worth checking the earths in the rear clusters although if the front light is funny then it sounds like a more central problem. They earth to the body afaik near the back of the clusters.

The front headlights earth onto the inner wings. There's a screw on each that will probably be well rusted on. I needed to use grips to get mine off. A good dousing with WD40 helped to clean them off and a bit of grease just on the threads to stop them rusting too badly again.

Hope that helps.

Post by **SteveP** » 18 Nov 2007 05:21 pm

Definitely an earthing issue....

I remember my front dipped beams coming on when I braked on my black car, it was a rear cluster earth - can't remember which though. Chris_C has talked about this many times though - have a search

Post by **kaos** » 18 Nov 2007 05:35 pm

as such all the lights work fine, its just with lights on when i press the brake the drivers side rear cluster kills both the sidelight and brake light. untill i remove my foot.

the main beam isnt such a problem as i hardly use it anyway. its just happened sundenly.

pretty sure the brake light problem happened after i removed all my audio so i'll have a play tomorrow as i was going to do it today but it rained.

Post by **Chris_C** » 19 Nov 2007 02:49 am

Definately an earth! Have a look in the how-to section for how I fixed mine, but as Andy says, also check (wiggle) the multiplugs on the bulkhead, from the inside mainly being the problem.

I had my wipers stop working today, whilst it was p*ssing down, that was the plug on the back of the wiper switch, seems all can get screwed

Good luck hunting it.

Post by **kaos** » 19 Nov 2007 02:35 pm

Right no fuses have gone.
The earth trick Chris posted about doesnt work on it either.
The plug is secure in the switch, so unless its a brake switch fault its intriging as to whats wrong

Post by **Chris_C** » 19 Nov 2007 03:26 pm

Check the bulkhead multiplugs, and also the front light earths. My 1.4 when I bought it failed it's MOT due to the front lights coming on when the brakes where pressed, that turned out to be the earth from the front lights.

What I would do would be to unplug the front lights, see if it still does it. (when you plug back in, make sure to abuse it with contact cleaner, maplins have it for a couple of quid). Then if it still does it, plug back in, try unplugging something else, and trial and error the problem. Work from front to back, the key is finding all the plugs, but the main ones are front lights, bulkhead, switches, rear lights.

EDIT: No, I was wrong, the front lights was a rear earth fault, not front... What have you checked on the rear earths so far?

Post by **kaos** » 19 Nov 2007 03:49 pm

well i tryed your earth tip with it pluged in to the holder, also tryed it outside of the holder..

drivers side light cluster earts on passenger side cluster( only visable place with an earth) did notice some water in that side.

its weird, beacause all other lights work fine it is just the brake light on the drivers side that has killed of that intire sides brake/side and headlight. so in a while i'll go and clean up all the earths front to back i guess

also the bulk head multi plugs those are the 2 just to the right of the steering collumn correct

Post by **Chris_C** » 19 Nov 2007 04:04 pm

Just to the right of the steering column from the inside, there should be 3, each has about 18pins and goes into the fusebox, which has 3 identical on the other side. They can be a pain in the backside, it's usually either those or the rear clusters that cause issues on a 300

Post by **kaos** » 19 Nov 2007 04:06 pm

right well i'll unplug those plugs and wd40 them, and do the same on the rear light earth passenger side.

Post by **Chris_C** » 19 Nov 2007 04:54 pm

Nah, not WD40, use contact cleaner. WD40 will just attract moisture and make them worse in the long run. Theres a reason car's who have wd40 sprayed on the rotor arm get "addicted" to it

Post by **Ronnie** » 19 Nov 2007 06:52 pm

Use grease, any grease, I use copper grease because it sticks and keeps the mess down - and contrary to common sense is still a pretty good insulator.

I looked into dialectic grease a while ago. Hard to get hold of, very expensive, americans bang on about it a lot. Basically, if your dealing with 12v auto electrics then just about any grease is effectively dialectic.

It will keep out moisture and protects against corrosion. Don't worry about dulling your electrical contacts, it wont.

Post by **Chris_C** » 20 Nov 2007 12:17 pm

Only problem with that Ronnie is if the contacts are rusty (loosest sense, i.e. they are oxidised) then the grease won't loosen it much, leaving you with the orig problem. Contact cleaner then grease would work, I've never thought about it tbh... would be a very long term test to see how well it works!!!

Post by **kaos** » 21 Nov 2007 04:27 pm

I think ive fixed it!

with regards to brake and sidelight dieing, doesnt seem to happen now. the earth on the actual holder didnt seem to connect to the bulb( makes me wonder why side light worked still though

) so i pushed it on to the bulb all works now.( will wait till night to find out for sure)

Headlights well i couldnt find any documents on how to change the bulbs() anyone got a how too?) so i unplug the problem one and pluged it back in and it then went and did what my old fiesta did which was take a bit of time then come on fully. strange i know, then put main beam on and that bulb cut out compleltely, but with the brake working again that bulb seems to work correctly now its just the other side(passenger) thgat doesnt seem to work correctly making me think both bulbs have a blow sidelight/main beam but i cant take the bulbs out to find out, so its another case of waiting till tonight.

and in other news i hate my engine. it mesed up yesterday cue me changing the battery at 9am (i was suposed to be at an interview) it starts and on rev's cut out. strange indeed so i was driving cautionusly and it starts doing what it does when its out of petrol, so i threw what little was left in my jerry can and she worked for about 20 metres. so left her where she lay, came back in the afternoon, and she started an ran fine.

just been playing with her and shes doing the same so cleaned the rotor arm and distro points and she seems to run like normal. so in a min im going to drive her up to the garage for some fuel.