Right side front and rear and number plate light stay on.

[redtwoseater]

Hi I,m scratching my head here I have a 1990 lhd Cal. 1600. I have just driven from Stoke to the lakes, parked up and noticed my right side front and rear and number plate lights are on, and the dash lights. I can not turn them off
I pulled out every fuse and checked but no luck. When I turn all the lights on they come on as normal. I,ve had to disconect the battery while camping to save the juice in the battery.
Any thoughts anybody?
From a puzzled Paul.

[Ian Hulley]

It's called a parking light and is common to many/most German cars, presumably they have some regulation to which this adheres ? The no. plate light is an earth isue imho.

Ian

[ewenmaclean]

I second the earth issue diagnosis for the number plate light - worth cleaning up the earths - particularly which earth the rear right light! I can't remember where they are exactly but it'll say in the Haynes Manual - I can have a look later.

[redtwoseater]

Hello helpful VW people
Paul's wife here !
We checked the parking light - that was the first thought to be honest. But that doesn't explain the dash and number plate light.
Our van relays look like this (from right to left ) - number 22 / 72/ 19/ 42 / 18/ blank one
Paul has taken all 6 of them out, one by one - the lights still remained on - dash lights + number plate light + right rear light + right front side light.
He's just spotted a loose wire connector from the battery to the alternator .... not sure if that has anything to do with it. He's connecting that now to see if that does anything.
No! lights are still on - so that wasn't it.
We're disconnecting the battery again and taking a bus trip to Penrith. If anyone has any fab ideas whilst we're out we'll be interested to know. Thanks

[Ralf85]

It would be good to know what the problem is. It would not be a parking light problem as this would relate to the left hand side of a lhd van as they park on the other side of the road. Weird.
Patrick

[Ian Hulley]

It would be good to know what the problem is. It would not be a parking light problem as this would relate to the left hand side of a lhd van as they park on the other side of the road. Weird.
Patrick

Either side stay on.

Sounds like a bad earth, as said before

[1664]

It would not be a parking light problem as this would relate to the left hand side of a lhd van as they park on the other side of the road. Weird.
Patrick

It doesn't matter what hand drive it is. Which side the parking lights come on is determined by which way the indicator stalk is left with the ignition off - well that how mine works anyway......

[ewenmaclean]

Hello again,

my van has parking lights left and right operated by the indicators when the ignition is not on, for what it's worth. If you reckon you've eliminated this then you should start getting checking other things sytematically.

As Ian says it's probably a bad earth. You have to try and remove the fuses until they switch off - it might be something you think has nothing to do with the lights, and then check the earths to the thing that fuse controls - if it's not earthed it will find a way to earth through other components. The fuses which should control these are

8 - right side and parking lights
20 - number plate light

Think the dashboard illumination is controlled by a 10amp one up above the main line of fuses - worth checking this one too in case you've forgotten about them. In any case check all the fuses you can find.

If it's all still on with all the fuses removed, then it won't be a bad earth. Remove the actual light switch connector by taking the dash cover off and unclipping the connector - see if that helps - only really relevant if a light related circuit is causing the fault, which should be determinable from the fuse removal test. If not another thought is that there might be a 12v feed from the row of blades at the back right of the fusebox itself - I have used this before. It might be badly wired up to something which is giving them power. Remove the retaining screw from the fuse box and see if there are any diy looking connections there.

Good luck finding it

Ewen

[redtwoseater]

Hi folks
Thanks for all the advice. Now back from the lakes, I had a good look over the van.
It appeared to be the earth wire which is situated behind the air filter (hidden) which is screwed to the body.
A clean up with emery cloth and some fresh wire (some melted wire!!, could it have caught fire????) now everything back to normal
Cheers Paul.

[ewenmaclean]

Hello,

well done on sorting it and finding the bad earth point. I personally still don't understand how they were still on after you took all the fuses out, as it means something that is on without the fuses in must have been previously earthing through the lights you mentioned, so I hope you don't now have a battery drain! I imagine either there is some extra element to this, or am I just a bit too thick to understand as is often the case!

Ewen

[peasant]

just a note on the side here ...this parking light function is optional. So if you leave your indicators on with the ignition off and you have no ligths ...it ain't broken ...it's just not fitted (like on my van ...really miss it sometimes as my old van used to have it)