Club 80-90 Forums

Went to come home last night, miles from home and pitch black. Jumped in the van and switched on the lights and no dipped beam headlamps.
Walked round the outside and the rear indictors showed a low but steady glow so it looked like an earth problem.
I pushed my hand behind the glove box to give the wires on the earth crown a wiggle and for my touble I seared the skin on the end of my finger.
Something in there was red hot but whatever I touched brought the lights back on.

So my question is was it just a poor connection that generated that much heat or am I also looking for some other problem. The heat was all at the connection not along the length of the wire.

Any help welcome

Thanks,

Mike.

A bad connection ( either between the earth crown and the bodywork or the earth crown and the spade conector pushed on to it) will get warm,
Glowing indicators is a classic symptom of poor earthing.

Clean up the crowns and all should be well.

T

Wot he said ^^^^^ a high resistance caused by a corroded/loose or tarnished connection generates heat.

Martin

Thanks both.
I was just suprised how hot it was.
All cleaned up now and sorted.

Those earth crowns next to the fuse box have a large number of conx and some, such as the Radiator Fan and headlights, cause all sorts of problems over a period of time due to the crowns heating. I fitted a seperate direct to chassis Earth stud for the high current cables and have had no problems since. Those cables are now bolted to earth rather than using the lucas connectors to crown tags.

Big-window SA buses don't have the troublesome crowns, they have 2 x M5 or M6 bolts/rivnuts in the same place with all the earths terminating in eyes.