Instrument panel chaos (with video)

[clinning]

hello, as i went to post this i saw the *must read* on electrical common faults. ie checking the earth crowns so will do that when i get chance.
but in the mean time thought i would still get this on here incase any one else has had similar issues.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MaE4Nz5IxZo

anyway please watch the video and see for yourself, it does seem like it could be an earthing fault after the reading of that post...

hope you can help. Marc

[tonytech]

Thats not the oil light above the temp gauge. its the low coolant/overheating light. Check your coolant level in the tank inside the engine bay just to be sure.
It should flash a few times when you first turn the key, then stop unless you have a problem.
Looks like a earth crown or pcb track problem to me.

T

[MidLifeCrisis]

WHS ^^^^^

Almost certainly a grounding problem (i.e. there is no ground, so the circuit is 'finding' a ground - probably through the headlight circuit - hence why it goes weird when the headlights are turned on).

For a quick test - if you look at the rear of the right-hand gauge (the one with the coolant and fuel gauge on it) - there are 3 nuts at the top - ground the middle one temporarily and see if it fixes it;

You need to ground the nut circled in red in the pic below;



You should be able to do this without removing the gauges (just yank the cover off and look down from above) - make sure you get the right nut (otherwise you'll be grounding 12v and smoke will come out!!)

You could also test to see if this nut has continuity to ground if you have a multimeter (It should have almost no resistance to ground).

If a wire from that nut to a temporary 'good' ground fixes it then there is a break somewhere in the ground circuit - so it's most likely one of the following;
1) PCB track is broken somewhere
2) Connector to the PCB track is faulty
3) Wire from connector to ground is broken
4) Ground connection is bad/dirty/rusted/disconnected

[clinning]

thanks for that will give them a try tonight and will write back with results. thanks again!

forgot to mention that the car also does not start when the light switch is pressed in, so should i start at the switch with the earthing and pcb? all problems seem to stem from here.

[MidLifeCrisis]

That's pretty strange - does it not turn over (i.e. starter doesn't work) or does it turn over but not start?

[clinning]

when i have the light switch pressed, the start motor clicks rapidly, thinking maybe the immobilser interference. but when its off its fine. crazy eh

[MidLifeCrisis]

Very weird - well try the grounding experiment and see what that fixes and work from there ....

[clinning]

SUCCESS! before i took the cover off instruments thought would check out these earthing crowns. removed them all and checked em out. one was brittle and snapped, so replaced the spade connector and BINGO! buffed the crowns up and filed some more paint of behind just incase.

it nows starts a bit better too

anyway thanks Midlifecrisis for that test. will definitly hold on to that information. i am sure this post will come in handy.

[MidLifeCrisis]

Nice one - glad you got it sorted.