Club 80-90 Forums

I stalled at traffic lights today and when I tried to restart I had no electric - then the fuse box started to smoke and crackle.

I found that someone had ran a wire linking two of the fuses together and this wire was what was now melting. After this wire had burned out and i had removed it the van started fine.

This evening i have replaced a couple of fuses and checked if everything works - the only thing not working now is the windscreen wipers and washer. I guess the previous owners bodge was a work around. The fuses sometime crackle when I fiddle about.

Can anyone suggest what i should look at to get wipers going again - bearing in mind i'm not too keen on electrics.

Many thanks

Can you hear the wiper relay clicking ? if not and you're sure the fuse is ok then your relay is probably faulty. If the relay is clicking then have a look at the wiper motor. Make sure you have correctly rated fuses, a couple of mine were rated too high which may have been why my rear wiper motor was fryed

Thats where I'd start but I'm not an electrickery expert.

Jim

i dont think its the wiper motor thats shot.not if it was working before.if i was you i would pay my local auto electrician a visit.try a new relay first.dont go to vw for a relay.they will want about £30.00 for one

Thanks

I'll try the relay before the expensive trip to the electrician!

rob if you fill your profile in so we know where you are.a member close to you could maybe let you try their relay in your motor.

My van is an 1984 with an early type fusebox with only two relays - one which does the indicators and one other part number 171 93/ 5-3 with a large 24 stamped on top. By the look of the haynes manual this is X-contact for load reduction - can anyone tell me what this does? would this be something to do with the wipers or should i even have a relay for the wipers as i don't have intermittent wipe?

Many thanks

Rob

Hiya Rob, oh pooh, if it was a later one we could have got together and swapped relays and fuses about between us & sorted out what was faulty, if you want to give that a try anyway ring me on 884088 or 07815 644 861 and we can meet up.

'84s don't come with intermitant wipers but they can be fitted quite easilly (not that I have done it yet). If you check the links page of my (unfinished) web page and click through to skorpios site you will find some instructions.

or click on the wiki button at the top of this page the instructions are there

We'll I've got all the electrics working again - by recreating the bodge the previous owner left me - so i now have a bit of heavy wire running from fuse 8 to fuse 10 and everything works - although i'll be keeping the fire extinguisher handy!

I did some research on the X-contact (or X-relief) relay and it is suppose to dim headlights turn off radio and wipers etc when extra amps are needed to start engine - i am convinced mine is not working and that the bodge is just bypassing the relay/live feed. I hope that if i replace it and i can do away with my bodged bit of wire!

I'll update the forum once i have found a safe long term solution.

Many thanks for all your suggestion.


Rob

Well done on finding that, drive safe, see you sometime, still like that van.

I can't get to look in my van at the moment, but IIRC (from poking about to fit the stereo!) the X-Contact wiring is black with a yellow stripe and feeds the top edge of some of the fuses. As you say, it should be 12V with ignition on (but not during starting!). I think the idea is that all the beefy electrics run through the X-C relay, rather than burning out the contacts on the keyswitch in the steering column.

One thing I can recommend (after a strange fish-like smell that eventually was tracked down to smouldering wires!) is to take out the ceramic fuses and thoroughly clean the contacts at each end of the fuse holder. Clean the fuses too so that all the metal work is shiny. My van had some corrosion on the fuse terminals that wasn't enough to stop anything working, but created enough resistance to cause a lot of heat which was conducted away by the wiring... It was Fuse 8 - Heater Blower (and wipers) that did it....

You should be able to check if your wiring 'bodge' has bypassed the X-C relay simply by pulling the relay out... If things keep working then you're not using the X-C switching at all!

thanks for finding what the x-relay is for. I have been wondering too. My headlights don't come on until the ignition is turned on but that's not quite what you are saying. Guess I'll have to look more closely (one day).

Thanks Dan

I'll try pulling the relay and see what happpens - it might give me a clue as about fixing the bodge properly.

Rob