01 SEAT Cordoba 1.4 petrol

The weather is holding me back from the skotchlok issue, but....

.... yesterday I finally got out to the car with a voltage tester. Opened the boot to check the voltage. I connected the clamp to an earth, switched on the lights, removed the plug and tested each of the 6 sections of the plug on both sides. Only 1 section on each side lit the voltage tester. Either port 1 or port 6 on the plug. Why did the others not light up the tester? Would I have needed to apply the brake pedal to activate them maybe?
Also tested the reverse lights. On the working side, one of the wires lit the voltage tester, the other didn't and neither lit it on the failing side. However, when I clamped to the working side across to the failing side, the tester lit up. What would this mean or suggest as a possible fix?
I didn't get around to removing the skotchloks yet, as it started to rain yet again and so I had to put the soldering iron away. :(
 
Sponsored Links
Aha the thing is still playing up then.....!
You are on the right track - lets go through that again.
You've fixed the tester clip to a known earth.....great.
With the side lamps on, only one of the block terminals should show voltage i.e the tester lights. The other terminals will become live when the rear fogs are on, reverse lights, brake lights etc. I would imagine one of those terminals is connected to earth but I'm not sure.
So, keep the tester on the same earth place, and check for the voltages on the troublesome side. If you don't get any tester illumination, then there's a wire break. If you do get a reading, but the lamp itself still won't work, the chances are its an earth fault on that particular cluster.
Check the colour codes.....the earth on your car seems to be brown, from your photo.
John :)
 
Ok John Thanks. I think the reverse lights problem is probably the earth. The little plug that holds the 2 wires going into it is snapped right on the squeezy part(if you know what I mean :)) And the brown/earth cable is on that side of it. I reckon running a new piece of wire across from the other might solve the problem, but wonder is that the best bet.
I have 2.5 metres of brown earth cable that I bought yesterday.
Is it easy to pull the wires free from these plugs or would they be soldered in?

The Brake lights/widow heater issue is still troublesome. I am going to go and test the plugs again in the manner that you have suggested, and I will take car to make sure each switch/beam is on, and brake pedal engaged while testing. It's still raining here though, so the skotchloks will have to wait til I get some dry weather. However,even if I can narrow the problem down to the exact wire/skotchlok, that would be an achievement. :)
 
Ok, so here is what I did. I turned the lights on, put the indicator/hazard lights on, applied the brake pedal, and sat the car in reverse gear.
Opened the boot, connected the clamp ond of the tester to the brown earth attached the the inside of the car boot. Next I unplugged the rear light plug which has 6 wire sockets, however, only 5 of them, I think, are wired. Black and white wire(rear lights on) socket lights up when touched with the tester, brown(earth) doesn't light up. Red(brake pedal) lights up, and then the hazard light cable(can't remember the colour)lights up. The 5th wire doesn't light up. The same happens on both sides.
The fog light is seated alongside the failing reverse light. This works fine. The skotchlocks are all still in place. The rear window mounted brake light doesn't work when the cars lights are switched on. But in daylight(when the lights are switched off), it works, but very faintly.
Next I tested the reverse lights in the same manner.
Connected to earth. The reverse light plug has 2 wires. Black and white(reverselights) and brown(earth). On the good side, the b&w wire lights up the tester and the brown one doesn't. On the failing side, nothing lights up. So again, if I connect the clamp to the good side(b&w wire) and then touch the failing side (b&w wire) the tester lights up.
Like I say, I do have some new earth cable. Any suggestions for either problem?
 
Sponsored Links
On the bad side reversing lamp, make another connection from the brown to earth.....its cross feeding from the good side so the connection you are getting is spurious.
Try the same from the dud side stop lamp earth wire and hopefully that'll bring on the high level stop lamp too!
John :)
 
Thanks as always John. I'll do those new earths tomorrow and let you know how it goes!
Is it ok to use a new spot for the earth? There is a metal nut doing nothing in the middle of the boot door which would be ideal for the reverse light. :)
 
Personally what I'd like to see here is a completely new (temporary) earth wire going from the boot lid to the bodyshell itself....just in case there is resistance through the boot lid hinges.
This could affect any of the lights on the lid, but naturally not those on the bodyshell.
John :)
 
But I'd still have to connect to the dodgy reverse light terminal too right?

In the brake light wiring, can I use the empty terminal in the 6 terminal plug for my new earth cable? OR will I have to try to slip it in the same terminal as the current earth.
 
The dodgy 2 pin reverse light plug will need to be sorted - can you post a pic of it?
Personally, I'd try not to interfere with the original car plugs and sockets.....maybe better to run additional wires so you can remove them later.
You could of course use a new scotchlok to connect a new earth to the original (brown?) coming from the lamp cluster.
John :)
 
Ok John, I'll get the picture up as soon as I can. My broadband is acting up and I cannot stay connected for long enough to upload the picture at the moment. It is just the earth side of the butterfly clip that is broken so that it can't be squeezed free on that side. You just squeeze on one side and it comes free(instead of the usual 2 sides). However, the brown earth wire looks a bit worn and frayed, and is exposed a bit too around the terminal connection point? So that is a possible issue. In fact judging by my findings(below), it HAS to be an earth problem, only setting a new earth doesn't seem to work. I touched some cable against the earth terminal in the bulb case where the plug plugs in and ran it to the new earth but it made no difference?
I took my tester and ran it from the new temporary earth to the live side of the good reverse light and it lit up. Ran it to the live side of the bad reverse light and it did not light up. Touching the clamp to the good side live wire to the bad side live wire lights up the tester also. *has to be the earth?
I took a length of new 27 amp brown cable. I ran it from the earth in the boot to the temporary new earth in the boot lid. Tested the lights and the results were: no change.
Then I ran it from the earth side of the dodgy reverse light to the temporary earth in the lid(as described above) and the results were: no change
Then I ran it from the earth in the reverse light to the earth inside the boot and the results were: no change
I even tried it from the live side of the good reverse light to the live side of the bad reverse light and still there was no change. The bad reverse bulb and bulb house both work fine on the good side so it has to be the wiring.
I also tried linking from the earths in the brake/rear light plugs to the boot earth and again no change to the heated rear window/window mounted light problem.
Keep in mind that when I say I ran the cable from (A) to (B), I basically mean that I touched it against the terminals. Nothing else. I didn't solder it in or tighten any screws. It was just very basic contact to see if any difference was found.
Maybe it is because I really have no idea whatsoever how to do this. :( I must be doing something wrong. If the tester lights up between the two live sides of the reverse light, then surely running a cable from one to the other should have worked? It has to be me doing something wrong? But I am convinced that the earth in the dodgy reverse light is the problem. So how can I fix this. I can use the new earth spot in the boot lid, but where do I run the new cable to? I thought it would be to the butterfly plug, or to somewhere in it's path but I am not having any luck yet. :(
 
When you can, send us a clear picture of the plug(s) and the back of the light cluster...especially the reversing lamp one.
If your weather is anything like mine, the broadband has bloody well drowned :evil:
John :)
 
Broadband still on the blink. Getting short sporadic bursts of connectivity!!
I managed to get this pic uploaded though.

http://www.troovi.com/aVZWZeoaNFaT

aVZWZeoaNFaT


It's the reverse light clip, showing the butterfly clip is broken on one side and showing also exposed and frayed earth cable close to the connection point in the plug. However, my own suspsicion, based on the testing this far, is that the brake in the earth cable must be lower that this point.
So far, I have run the tester light from the new(temp) earth in the boot lid to the good reverse light(live wire) ad it lights up. To the bad reverse light, it doesn't light up. Linking the tester from the live to live on the 2 reverse lights does light it up, so that suggests that the live is working, right?
I have tried to trace the brown cable to see where it goes. The wiring eventually branches out in all directions, but the brown cable seems to follow down to the fog light below it. The fog light works mind you. So, maybe if I splice open and replace the brown earth cable between fog light and reverse light, it will be solved?
Perhaps a breaker would be able to simply replace these wires from a plug to plug type source? Is that a possibility?
I am still at a loss on the brake light/heated rear window issue. The window mounted brake light doesn't work at all when all my lights are on, and it only works very faintly(borrowing power from the heated window), when the lights are off. Heated window doesn't work at all. I guess that it is still possible that sorting the earth o the reverse light might also cure this?
 
Ok, and many thanks for the pics! Presumably thats the dud plug?
Use your tester on the blue/white wire, make contact with any metal bit in the plug and the tester should light. Try this on both ends of the plug. I imagine the colour code is the same on the other reverse light?
If you have a multimeter, check continuity on the brown wire between it and the bodyshell. I imagine this will be ok because I suspect its an earth continuation from the fog light.
Testing live to live isn't right...it will be spurious.
John :)
 
Not getting any signal from that part of the plug, which is strange?
I guess it must be the earth to the foglamp? If I Splice and change that, maybe I'll be sorted?

Perhaps a breaker would have a plug to plug cable that could do the job?

Any chance that fixing this could fix the brake light?

No multimeter on me at the moment though. :(

Thanks John.
 
The wire I'm interested in is the blue and white one.....if there's no voltage here, then the cable is severed somewhere within the loom - maybe towards those scotchloks?
If you can't get a voltage, I'd look at the scotchlok that interferes with the blue and white wire.
Failing that, I'd take a wire from the other side reverse light and splice in.
I very much doubt if a breaker could supply what you want, but there's no harm in trying!
John :)
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Sponsored Links

Similar threads

J
Ford focus mk2 Bonnet catch problem
Replies
10
Views
3K
Burnerman
B
Back
Top