Club 80-90 Forums

Hi I have a couple of electrical faults which mean i blow the windscreen wiper fuse repeatedly and my temp gauge doesnt always work (i have replaced the sender) which i believe is a earth fault any ideas where is the best place to start looking...? ta (1983 1.6 diesel)
Oh and the fuel gauge is suspect!

behind the dash on the a piller. " hedgehog " of earth connectors. if you drop the fuse box down you should see it.

Hello,

WHS^ + also the dash pod has a voltage regulator which controls the fuel gauge and temperature sender, and it's always worth checking how clean the connections are here. If you're shorting out, I'd suspect you might have an earthing problem before the component - e.g. a wire from a switch to the wiper motor is rubbing against an earthed part of body intermittently - equally it could be the motor itself. See what else is on that fuse - I think with an 1983 van that's the wiper switch and wiper motor only, unless you have rear demist.

Check the resistance of the wiper motor itself when the battery is out, by putting a multimeter across the terminals - then check the resulting current against the fuse rating - I've had a wiper motor with an intermittent internal earth leak before. Also I'd check the wiring itself - make sure there no exposed metal of a feed wire from the fuse box rubbing against something metal somewhere.

Good luck sorting it out

Ewen

Thanks so much...you have prob saved much standing around, tutting, head scratching and more than likely, swearing!!

If it helps people in the future these are the earth hedgehogs, I cleaned mine with a small wire brush on Dremel and some servisol super 10 I bought on ebay - result below


Shiny!

[img]http://img.tapatalk.com/d/13/03/08/uma5y8uz.jpg[/img]

And if they are really bad and you need new ones they are fitted to new Steyr tractors.

bigherb wrote:And if they are really bad and you need new ones they are fitted to new Steyr tractors.

That's a very interesting piece of info!
Thanks

Isn't the wiper fuse on the same circuit as the heater blower? and isn't it the heater blower motor partially seizing that is usually responsible for the fuse blowing & not the wiper motor.

Martin

[quote="Smcknighty"]If it helps people in the future these are the earth hedgehogs, I cleaned mine with a small wire brush on Dremel and some servisol super 10 I bought on ebay - result


Can't see the image, can you repost?
Cheers

Tis if its got the bullet fuses (pre-85). Bottom of this page. If its post 85, I think VW cottoned on and split wiper/blower.

https://club8090.co.uk/wiki/Co ... eplacement" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

California Dreamin wrote:Isn't the wiper fuse on the same circuit as the heater blower? and isn't it the heater blower motor partially seizing that is usually responsible for the fuse blowing & not the wiper motor.

Martin

https://club8090.co.uk/wiki/VW ... bad_earths" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Reimotim wrote:

Smcknighty wrote:If it helps people in the future these are the earth hedgehogs, I cleaned mine with a small wire brush on Dremel and some servisol super 10 I bought on ebay - result


Can't see the image, can you repost?
Cheers

Image is too big. It's 1112 x 1488 - it's over the 1024 height.