PHIL928

After installing all new interior lights, (VW Modern ones), there seems to be a bit of a glitch in the lighting. Here's the dilemma: I installed the rear hatch light with the hatch open, as you do, and I noticed that it wasn't on like the rest of the lights, I checked the wiring and it was fine, so I closed the hatch and the other lights went off but weirdly the rear hatch light came on???
I then opened the door and the reverse happened???
so in short the rear hatch light comes on when the others go off and vice versa.
On the coolant, where do I drain the coolant from the engine block? I'm doing a coolant flush (chemically safe to the aluminium) later today and i think I need to drain the flush from the engine or is there a better way?
Cheers

**Edit- I found a really good writeup on the coolant by Dwayne (Y)

smiffypr

Swap the switched ground and the power wires on the hatch light.

PHIL928

I'm sure I tried that yesterday, but I'll give it a go again.

Mrmerlin

if your not careful; you can fry the harness,
disconnect the battery then remove the light ,
then connect the battery and find the wire thats hot,
once this is done then you need to figure out what one of the terminals is isolated from both of the grounds,
this is where the hot wire should connect,
then figure out what one of the terminals is housing ground,
the other will be switched ,
Important.....also inspect the other lights you have installed as one or more are probably miswired,
and you can easily let the smoke out of the wire

put heat shrink on every connector so they cant short out.

Maleficio

Those lights can be tricky.

Alan

So did the lights work correctly before you changed them out?

Alan

PHIL928

Thanks for the help.
I tried this and couldn't track down the "hot wire", it is exactly wired like the others and they work 100%. One of the POs burned the hatch harness out, and I replaced it with a 86.5 MY as they are very similar, I don't know if this could be the cause. The wiring diagrams are the same and I compared it with the burnt one which was similiar aswell, however it did have 2 extra wires but I reckoned they must have been for the US spec 3rd brake light.
Switching them around does absolutely nothing, the red (or live) is in the right place. I think the problem may lie deeper in the wiring.
All of the lights were wrecked by one of the POs, no idea why someone would remove ALL of them, breaking them in the process.

PHIL928

Problem Solved.
I went to the local hardware shop and picked up a multimeter and tested all the connections and indeed I had wired it wrongly. I guess the red wire is not always live in these cars.
Anyway I rewired it and eureka, it works perfectly just like the others. The VW Golf lights work really well
Sorry for being an idiot.

James Bailey

Ah....The question...".All of the lights were wrecked by one of the POs, no idea why someone would remove ALL of them, breaking them in the process. "
the answer.....".One of the POs burned the hatch harness out,"

Most likely when the smoke started escaping from the wires they started grabbing lights.