Electrical Problems - Please help to solve

[DodgyTech]

Hi everyone

I've got a MK2 Golf 1.3 standard and I've got a few electrical problems with it. I'll try my best to give as much info on each problem below:

1. Left indicator stops blinking when the brake pedal is pressed. Before I thought this was a problem with not enough power running through my alternator and giving extra gas would make it start blinking again (but that could just be because my foot may have slightly raised from the brake pedal - not too sure). I've looked for signs of corrosion on the front left and side repeater but it all seems fine. I cannot access the boot one because it's a custom build and they've sealed off the boot, but it looks fresh from the outside and looks like a sealed unit that water cannot get into. Could there be a bad earth along the way? There is a hint in the next point that may I think is linked to this point.

2. Now my front right indicator has stopped working. I thought it was a bad bulb but when I checked it out, it was fine. I had the right indicator on and took out the front left indicator bulb to test it out int he front right. As I took it out and laid the holder to rest, the right indicator started working all of a sudden. I don't know what I did, but I cannot replicate that again. I'm thinking that there is a problem with the front left holder or something behind the front of the car. I took the bulb out of the front left and right and sprayed the inside with contact cleaner spray, they are both clean.

3. Not a major issue, but when I press the wiper lever forward to star the rear wiper, it moves to one side, but doesn't come back. I think when I used to give extra gas, it would come back. I think there is a problem with the relay as I have heard some clicking in the past which isn't normal but haven't heard it lately.

4. I think that there is definitely a short circuit somewhere because my car battery always seems to drain after a week. I took the battery out and charged it for about 18 hours and even kept the ICE system positive wire (0 gauge wire) disconnected, but it went flat within a few days! It's a hit and miss so I cannot really say that it's guaranteed to alst a week. Sometimes it lasts more without me turning the car on and sometimes it can go within a few days. What's the best way to test this? I know I can connect an indicator bulb between the earth wire and the negative pole of the battery and remove each fuse. Can anyone advise me what's the best multimeter to buy, where's the best and cheapest place to get it from and how I should use it.


The car has been modified where the boot is sealed off to allow a middle compartment to rise up and down and the carpet is glued in and there is leather around the car. I would prefer to hopefully avoid opening those things up but if it means that's the best and only way to solve my problems, then so be it.

Any help would be much appreciated. I have a picture showing the earth clamps which I shall attach to this post.

I want to sort this out myself rather than pay an electrician stupid amounts of money. Of course if you think that I should not mess with my electrics, then just tell me that I'm better off going to a professional

Kind Regards

p.s. Pic of earth points is attached

 

[jasperconran]

with a muti meter Remove the cars earth and use the muti meter between the earths, wire to batt,

This will show if volts are being lost/ used.

I would also say check your altnantor, Sounds to me like your not charging the bat. check batt with meter when running and tell us what it reads. should be about 12.5-13 v
and for the fault with your lights, Most light fauts like that are bad earths. try a new earth strap.

i use one like this.
http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/Digital-Muti-..._Measurement_Equipment_ET?hash=item2a0329db30

U can get them at the sunday market cheaper.

 

[DodgyTech]

Thanks for the reply jasper

with a muti meter Remove the cars earth and use the muti meter between the earths, wire to batt,

This will show if volts are being lost/ used.

Should I aim to have the multimeter connected before I remove the negative clamp? Do I connect the negative of the multimeter to the earth wire and the positive to the battery? What setting should it be on?

I would also say check your altnantor, Sounds to me like your not charging the bat. check batt with meter when running and tell us what it reads. should be about 12.5-13 v

I have changed my alternator and my in car head-unit shows that the Voltage is around 13 volts. I believe it is charging the battery but i fear that I could be overcharging the battery as I changed it for an "uprated" alternator due to my ICE cutting off every time I turned the volume up!

and for the fault with your lights, Most light fauts like that are bad earths. try a new earth strap.

i use one like this.
Digital Muti Meter Hilka on eBay (end time 04-Jan-10 13:34:27 GMT)

U can get them at the sunday market cheaper.

In regards to the earth strap, how do I test if it really is the strap? I read somewhere that I can make a direct connection between the battery and the point of the connection for each strap. I could clean each connection point but to me they look fine (I'm not an expert)

So I don't need to go for a Maplins one?

 

[jasperconran]

Thanks for the reply jasper



Should I aim to have the multimeter connected before I remove the negative clamp? Do I connect the negative of the multimeter to the earth wire and the positive to the battery? What setting should it be on?

No no and no, lol,with the engine of Undo your earth on the batt, one wire from the meter to the earth strap you removed from the batt, the other wire goes on the neg of the battary, Set your meter to lowest it can go,

This will show how many volts your using when the car is switched off, Ie any clocks , alram etc

I have changed my alternator and my in car head-unit shows that the Voltage is around 13 volts. I believe it is charging the battery but i fear that I could be overcharging the battery as I changed it for an "uprated" alternator due to my ICE cutting off every time I turned the volume up!

I would still test with the meter just to double check. But if your charging ok then i would think about getting the batt tested for dead cells.
Most auto spares will test your batt for free,{needs a full charge}

In regards to the earth strap, how do I test if it really is the strap? I read somewhere that I can make a direct connection between the battery and the point of the connection for each strap. I could clean each connection point but to me they look fine (I'm not an expert)

So I don't need to go for a Maplins one?

i would use a temp wire from the earth at the light end to th batt, and test,
sometimes the problem is that where the earth is screwed into the body, the body will rust in time Make your bad earth, Sometimes a bigger screw will fix this.

 

[DodgyTech]

hey sorry for the late reply.

No no and no, lol,with the engine of Undo your earth on the batt, one wire from the meter to the earth strap you removed from the batt, the other wire goes on the neg of the battary, Set your meter to lowest it can go,

This will show how many volts your using when the car is switched off, Ie any clocks , alram etc

I read somewhere that removing the terminal could risk losing a way to detect the short or something like that. Sounded crap to me because it's a short no matter what! lol

Which one of these is a good multimeter?

New Digital LCD Multimeter Voltmeter Ammeter Ohmmeter on eBay (end time 16-Dec-09 16:26:26 GMT)

Digital Multimeter Current Voltage Resistance UT39A on eBay (end time 29-Dec-09 20:02:54 GMT)

I would still test with the meter just to double check. But if your charging ok then i would think about getting the batt tested for dead cells.
Most auto spares will test your batt for free,{needs a full charge}

Okay, i have to admit that I kinda did a little "mod" thinking it would improve things...I ran a thicker wire from the alternator to the positive of the battery in order to reduce the resistance. Was this a good idea or bad?

i would use a temp wire from the earth at the light end to th batt, and test,
sometimes the problem is that where the earth is screwed into the body, the body will rust in time Make your bad earth, Sometimes a bigger screw will fix this.

What sort of wire would be a good one? Obviously it should be some degree of thickness im guessing.

can I use old electrical wiring from say an extension lead (house one for plugs etc) ?

 

[TBC]

in almost all cases of light malfunction it is the result of deteriorated earth connections.

where an indicator fails to flash when brakes are applied, where a cluster of light illuminate when the brake is pressed or sidelights go off when brake is pressed. All classic symptoms of earth breakdown.

first test your alternator, is functioning within its required range. start the engine and leave it ticking over set your meter to DC volts and put the probes on the battery it should read within the range 13.8volts - 14.8 volts depending on battery charge state. Have a friend rev the engine - make sure it stays within that range no matter what the rev's. If it rises to more than 15v then alternator is over charging the battery. If the voltage it below 13.7 volts then alternator is not charging well.

to measure current consumption set you meter to 10 amps range, connect probes to common and the 10 amp terminal on meter. Remove earth cable from battery connect black probe to battery - and connect the red probe to the earth lead. depending on anscillary item on the vehicle the current drain should not be exceeding 250ma If the consumption is more than 1/2 amp then that is why your battery is failing. If consumption at rest is less than 300ma then suspect the battery is failing.

You may want to consider adding extra earth lines to the entire loom at convenient points especially light clusters to see if you can stop your earth failures. have a measure around the liht clusters measuring resistance to ground of the actual ground cables an you find that are not less then 1ohm resistance to ground you should consider reinforcing the contact to ground. Make very sure you do not accidentally ground a live or swicthed live - pay close attention to the vehicles wiring diagram and excercise common sense, as you start to sure these little nicks and nacks you should find the number of problems left over are quite small Also find you fuse box and make sure any multi connectors are pulled apart inspected and sprayed with a switch cleaner spray before refitting. Remove and inspect all relays as well before refitting.


good luck mate, it actually doesn't take that long to whip through this list
alsop have a good look at the earch braid that links the chassis to the engine and make sure it is tight and making a good connection.

 

[DodgyTech]

hey mate, finally got a multimeter and went through a few of your pointers.

in almost all cases of light malfunction it is the result of deteriorated earth connections.

where an indicator fails to flash when brakes are applied, where a cluster of light illuminate when the brake is pressed or sidelights go off when brake is pressed. All classic symptoms of earth breakdown.

first test your alternator, is functioning within its required range. start the engine and leave it ticking over set your meter to DC volts and put the probes on the battery it should read within the range 13.8volts - 14.8 volts depending on battery charge state. Have a friend rev the engine - make sure it stays within that range no matter what the rev's. If it rises to more than 15v then alternator is over charging the battery. If the voltage it below 13.7 volts then alternator is not charging well.

Did this. It is constantly at 14v and when I rev, it stays the same.

to measure current consumption set you meter to 10 amps range, connect probes to common and the 10 amp terminal on meter. Remove earth cable from battery connect black probe to battery - and connect the red probe to the earth lead. depending on anscillary item on the vehicle the current drain should not be exceeding 250ma If the consumption is more than 1/2 amp then that is why your battery is failing. If consumption at rest is less than 300ma then suspect the battery is failing.

Couldn't get the multimeter to measure in anything else apart from 0.xx. I think I found what was causing the drain. It was the digital amps. When I measured without the terminal for the car's ICE conected, it was 0.02. When i connected the ICE and measured again, it was 0.05. When I pressed the fuse breaker button for the amps and measured again, it was 0.02. I tried other likely fuses, but it was still 0.05 until i did the amps.

I disconnected the wire for the ICe, but realised I need to make sure that the battery stays alive now with the rest of the ICE connected. At present, the ICE wire is disconnected and the car still starts even if i leave it a week!

You may want to consider adding extra earth lines to the entire loom at convenient points especially light clusters to see if you can stop your earth failures. have a measure around the liht clusters measuring resistance to ground of the actual ground cables an you find that are not less then 1ohm resistance to ground you should consider reinforcing the contact to ground. Make very sure you do not accidentally ground a live or swicthed live - pay close attention to the vehicles wiring diagram and excercise common sense, as you start to sure these little nicks and nacks you should find the number of problems left over are quite small Also find you fuse box and make sure any multi connectors are pulled apart inspected and sprayed with a switch cleaner spray before refitting. Remove and inspect all relays as well before refitting.

In regards to the indicators, check this out.

My right indicator has not been working for some reason. The front right one is off so the rest of the right indicators flash fast. I thought it was te bulb, but when I had the car on and was testing by removing the front left indicator bulb to put into the front right holder, the right side indicator started working! (i had the right indicator on at the time).

It went back to flashing fast when I messed around with it by taking out the front right bulb and/or turning car off or changing indicator direction. I couldnt replicate what I did and had been doing te same fast flashing since then.

Today I left the car running with the right indicator on to see if i could connect a direct wire from negative on battery to any chassis part on the right side of car, but when I went in to get a wire and came back out, the right indicator was working fine. This lead me to think that after a while of the car running and maybe with the right indicator left on for a while, it fixes the prob.

Now onto the left indicator. I noticed that when the left inidicator is on and the brake is applied, the rear left indicator light has a faint glow showing me that there is some current passing through the bulb. Not flashing, but just a weak orange light. A neighbour has an electrician friend who he will try to have a look at the car for me, but that's in 2 weeks. The rear lights are special lexus style ones fitted by a car modification company. I don't think they will help me by telling me how to remove the lights and it seems that the lights are boxed in by a special speaker box that is sealed by glued and stitched leather, so it's hard to access. I'd have to cut the leather and dismantle the box!

good luck mate, it actually doesn't take that long to whip through this list
alsop have a good look at the earch braid that links the chassis to the engine and make sure it is tight and making a good connection.

This I still have to do.

How does this look so far? My main concern is the left indicator now.

 

[DodgyTech]

SORTED IT!!!

Managed to get into the boot area - the garage had built a custom woofer box in the back on both sides. I managed to remove the woofers and finally access the back panels. The earth on the back left was loose - removed, cleaned and tightened and the left indicator stopping when i pressed the brake problem was fixed.

The back left had no probs, so i checked the connectors at the front and they needed electrical contact cleaner spray and it's working now. I ripped the wire off when puling the connectors out (the part that connects into the wiring system behind the headlight) so i'm gonna go and pick up a spare from the local breakers.

thanks for all the assistance guys and I just had to share my sucecss. got burnt 3 hours in the sun today but it was well worth it!!

 

[neorage]

one thing io will say about your ICE dying due to to much volume is normally duer to the cars wiring loom for the head unit.

i had to run a direct permenant live from the battery to the HU (fused of course)

this solved my cutting out issue when turning up to 11 (1500w of amps, std alternator, high amp battery))

 

[DodgyTech]

one thing io will say about your ICE dying due to to much volume is normally duer to the cars wiring loom for the head unit.

i had to run a direct permenant live from the battery to the HU (fused of course)

this solved my cutting out issue when turning up to 11 (1500w of amps, std alternator, high amp battery))

Oh that doesn't happen anymore as I put in a bigger alternator ages ago.