Hawkeyes

God, I love this car! It's almost as exciting as Lucas positive ground Jaguars.

My fuel gauge would show correctly at engine start, then on some unknown command, drop to zero. I pulled the pod, cleaned all contacts, same with contacts in trunk.

Both speedo & tach worked before I opened the pod so must be something I did, broke, overlooked.

Also now notice that the interior lights don't come on, & nothing displays when I use the steering column/computer levers. Plus, of course, the fuel gauge still doesn't work.

I have a spare Interior Light Delay relay, swapped out, but no change. Fuse appears good.

Any ideas?

Thanks,
Hawkeyes

Alan

Sounds like you blew the interior light fuse... instruments are on the same circuit.

Check fuses 7/10/24

Alan

Hawkeyes

Alan,

Thanks for your advice.

I checked the fuses and #24 (15a) was blown. Replaced it with a 10a & interior lights worked fine until I opened the hatch. (used the button) Then the fuse blew - replaced with 15a - blew immediately. Hit the battery cutoff switch, then replaced 15a with a 25a fuse. Switched on the battery, blew the fuse 3-5 seconds later.

So I've got a short somewhere in the #24 fuse-protected wire set, right?

Thanks,
Hawkeyes

Nicole

Check the dome lights you have between the sun visors, and in the hatch - the heat from the standard bulb sometimes makes those deform a bit, and you get contact with the metal from the roof structure.

Consider switching to LEDs (I did this on my car tonight - now I can use all interior lights without worry. But I did blow a fues in the process... ). I have sets of these LEDs available.

ROG100

Pull and check all your interior lights. The overhead at the front is the main culprit, however check and replace where they look bad.

Tom in Austin

Is there a workaround whereby one can put rubber or some other insulator on the metal from the roof structure to insulate and thus prevent shorting?

This is one of my tasks on my new GTS, so hoping there's at least one simple solution out there (before I plunge into central locking, etc).

Alan

Tom

Couple of options:

1) Cut the connector ends off the factory harness for the interior fittings and crimp on fully insulated 1/4" quick disconnect connectors, most critical are the red (or green in hatch) wires. May not solve the problem if the light fixture disintegrates (they do...)


2) Get rid of those crappy ancient VW vanagon interior lights (Hella) and get much less crappy new VW interior lights (?) that are fully insulated - see several previous threads on this... nicer looking lights - less likely to fall apart/ short out and the are easier to operate (and are marked!), fit perectly. I have them in my GTS - H has some too...

Alan

BTW to the rest of you - don't test failures by substiuting a bigger fuse - it never ever works... if it did - guess what - you are just making it worse...

If a fuse blows there is a reason. Wiring on your Porsche is "sized to need" so a 5A circuit is capable of handling 5A (and a little more) but not 25A... if you fuse to 25A - likely the wire will melt somewhere (somewhere you wont know and wont be able to find very easily) before the fuse does....

In this case - take out each interior light fitting and evaluate - probably one of them has fallen apart or is dissconnected. Start with the roof & hatch before the doors because they are more likely to short out...

Hawkeyes

Alan,

I ran several searches but could not find the thread.

If I pull my old interior light/door light, bring them to the VW dealer/parts, will they know which one with which to replace?

Do I need a specific part number(s)?

Thanks,
Hawkeyes

Alan

Unfortumnately its not quite plug & play - besides that this was more of an answer to Tom's GTS queston...

You may want to do this to improve things eventually - but first find the culprit and fix it for now... go investigate the trunk switch and roof/door light fixtures.

Heres some info on the light fixtures though anyway...

https://rennlist.com/forums/showthre...eferrerid=6055

See post #69 here -
https://rennlist.com/forums/showthre...eferrerid=6055

The VW part number in Black is: 3B0941219BB41

Alan

Hawkeyes

Alan,

You are correct, sir. The culprit was the hatch light grounding out on the roof. Bare ground terminal was replace with insulated, solved it...sort of. I replaced all uninsulated ground terminals on interior light fixtures, but the hatch light is a problem - vinyl pulling away from the cheeeaaapp light fixture. I plan to purchase the VW unit, try and adapt it to work in place of the hatch-mounted Hella. Will probably leave the rest alone.

Thank you, thank you, thank you, for saving me the mind-numbing 'track down the short' process I expected would have to occur. Got all my gauges & indicators back, so Baby Blue is on the road again!

Best,
Hawkeyes