Club 80-90 Forums

Feel a bit stuck, away from home in North Bristol, rainy day..
No tools with me either..
Any ideas?
Will call out the breakdown man.
Electrics is a blind spot for me.
Checked the fuse (I think!)
But as it seems fine and its a collection of issues,
Does that indicate something like a collective earth?
Thanks for any offerings.

Well isnt it strange.
All the way here in bits of wet,
I was wiggling the switches.
After sitting and tapping out the message,
and then trying again its all working now.
Only thing I can think of is I turned the ignition on and off.
Still a puzzle and not reliable.
So still asking as it might stop at a bad time,
And its harder to fix now it’s working!

Check your grounds?

They all work off the load reduction relay, possibly a faulty relay or the ignition switch or wiring between, (black with a yellow trace).

bigherb wrote:They all work off the load reduction relay, possibly a faulty relay or the ignition switch or wiring between, (black with a yellow trace).

Surely there is still an earth point? I know I have.

I could clean an earth connection, where is it?
More faults are fuel gauge wasnt working then started again,
and the washer is now only working on fast wipe speed.
Got me home in the rain ok fortunately.

I had a similar problem but the head lights did not work properly either, it was the ignition switch that was faulty as big herb suggests. Have you got a large bunch of keys attached to your ignition key that might be bouncing as you drive?

wiper and washer pump and heater fan all on the same fuse on early , if the fuse has dirty tarnished connection it will get hot and become a poorer contact .

dont use the heater fan and wipers at the same time !!

And check what sized fuse too. Its not uncommon to see oversized fuse due to it blowing in the past. Read: https://club8090.co.uk/wiki/Co ... eplacement" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false; and scroll down to: PRE-85 FUSEBOX MOD

thanks so much everyone..
I am an expert at procrastinating so I have just got round to looking at this,
having taken off the plastic shroud around the steering column,
it seems awfully dusty in there, fluffy kind of dust..
I think it might help to clean it up but not sure how to get further in to the contacts.

Also I would like to check the grounds, but not seeing any near here,
so I guess I am looking at the main ones around the fusebox next.

Aha, there was a contact that was obviously for the washers.
After a nail file cleaning it up it now works everytime, fantastic.
I did at one point get the whole wiper system to stop working again,
and when, as last time, I turned the ignition off and on again,
without even switching the wipers off, they came on again with the ignition.
Its not clear wether they might have come on if I had just wiggled the key..
I am going to look more around the fusebox,
unless theres anything I can do in the key area?

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If you look at the last picture I sent,
it looks rather like some evidence of overheating in the connection,
which as you can see is the one to the key,
which also has the yellow tracer wire you mentioned.

PS its a late fuse box I suppose, double spade type fuses.
They all seem fine.

A closer picture, it shouldnt look like this. Is that supposed to come apart easily, I dont want to force it if not, but it would be good to look at the connections and clean them.


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The black plug there should pull off (down) easily. It may have bonded a bit to the ignition switch (white male plug sticking into that black one)