Mamooguy

Yay! I get five Rennlist points!

pjburges

Don't you feel clever after hours behind the voltmeter you find that you actually just forgot to plug it in, or it was just a burnt out bulb??? haha

Rally Guy

I feel humbled. While I learned a lot, it was also a lot of effort at a point where I don't have a lot of spare time. I wasn't able to reassemble everything in time to drive the car today - so I was "stuck" driving the BMW. (Not a bad thing - that HK 13 speaker stereo sure rocks for an OEM system).

But it's an interesting study in phychology, how I jumped on the "can't be bulbs" bandwagon so quickly - buying into the notion that all three wouldn't burn out at once when in fact, Occam would say - the most likely element in the circuit to fail would in fact be the bulbs - and he was right! (And re-reading that post now - it IS in fact suggested that I check the builbs first - which I didn't!)

Bottom line - and advice to other folks chasing electrical mysteries is "Don't assume ANYTHING!" and it's corollary, TEST EVERYTHING. : )

Thanks for all the help guys - happy to have it fixed, and I'm now WAY safer - with all lights working again!

RK

Randy_J

Welcome to the club.... more than a few of us have the same feeling / time pressure! Always seems things go wrong right at the time we least expect it.

Yep, sounds very familiar! When it comes to electrical stuff, I've learned to start with the simple stuff and work towards the complex unless it's really obvious. These cars are getting on 25+ years and faulty / loose / corroded grounds, pin switches, stuck relays, etc are all culprits. Sooner or later, these cars experience weird intermittent electrical maladies of one sort or another. The worst are fuse box issues - I replaced the one in the 968Cab when I got fed up with the weird things which resulted from a bad stereo install by a P.O. - the installer forced wires into the fuse box terminals which are basically soft copper - bending those = intermittent contact.

AMEN!

BTW - a really good idea to check all the main ground points on these cars - here's a chart. The main negative ground points (battery box and rear of the engine block) are prone to corrosion and the main ground under the dash on the DS (basically the ground for all the instruments and interior stuff) are worth checking for corrosion and loose connections. Ditto to check the 2 grounds at the headlights for bad / weak lighting. Even better, install a relay HL harness like the one Rennbay now makes http://www.rennbay.com/porsche-944-h...ess-p-111.html
Porsche chose not to use relays and all that current is handled by wiring - including the HL switch and fuse box!

Todd157k

RK- you should stick a meter in one of the bulb sockets and fire up the car. The burned out bulbs could be a result of high voltage in the system. If the Alt. is overcharging, you will have more problems than burned out bulbs.

Rally Guy

Good tip! Will do!

Also - THANK YOU for the grounds list - will check all of them.

Again - thanks to all for the help - I feel so loved!

RK