brown cable at headlights

[scottbott]

mine is looking a bit grotty and not shiney when the insulation cut back,it looks sort of "rusty",will buy "tinned" cable to replace it all the way back to the fuse box,anyone done this?,if so how much cable does it take? as I cannot see it as it goes through a plastic sleeve,was thinking that if I cut it off at the headlights will it pull through from the fusebox if I attach the new cable to the newly cut off old cable,thanks

[CovKid]

Brown is the earth. Much simpler to earth it on the body near headlight rather than run back into vehicle.

[scottbott]

just looking at the haynes workshop manual would it be an easy job to replace all the cables from the lights back to the fuse box or is that a waste of time

[lloydy]

pretty sure the loom is still available from vw

[scottbott]

never even thought of that!,thanks

[syncroandy]

It's not hard to remove the front loom so it can be repaired or upgraded 'on the bench' then refitted, much better then trying in situ.

The Carat front loom is still available and is nice as it has the twin lights and twin horn connections, it's 'only' £130ish which actually isn't that bad when you consider what people are prepared to spend on square headlights. I can do an excellent repair/upgrade service much cheaper than that though..

[scottbott]

have looked through books about electrical repairs and upgrades and they all seem to do the "repairs" on a bench and never upside down in the engine bay or soldering up under the dash where there is no room,do not know how people can solder cable when it is hard to see let alone reach

[scottbott]

what does your repair/upgrade consist of and how much money are we talking about roughly?

[CovKid]

I still don't follow the logic here. The brown wire is just the earth and merely goes back to the earth crowns under the dash. You can connect it to the nearest bit of bodywork - it will do the same job. If you're going to replace the headlight wires, you're better off fitting relays and doing the job properly but in any event there is no logical reason to route the earth inside. Its just needs a connection to the body - nothing more.

[silverbullet]

And of course all the crimps in all the connectors go green, so a full replacement/refurb of the headlight loom does start to make even more sense rather than the piecemeal approach.

[scottbott]

yes I noticed some green terminals,gave them a wire brush up and grease up,have bought the correct "latched" type connectors and will get round to replacing it all with new cable and connectors

[CovKid]

Plenty in the WIKI on doing the job right.