Long story short, my lights have been failing. They first did it a few days ago, with no input from me at all, sat at 70 on the motorway, I saw the blue high beam indication come on. All of my lights including tail lights were off apart from my high beams.

 

Having made myself very familiar with the wiring diagrams over the last few days I know sort of why. It pops the 10 amp fuse in the footwell which means the black relay under the bonet can not be energised. To my understanding that relay is energised to inhibit the high beams, some sort of fail safe that leaves you with some lights.

 

To my mind then, somewhere I have a short, that is before the lights but after the switch, it is like connecting the + to - across the battery and as it is pulling through that fuse it blows.

 

 

I have done as many checks as I can, most things seem fine and I believe the problem to lie where it says "to clearance tail and illumination lamps"

 

I have found a few uninsulated ends and covered them but the fault is now intermittent and it is making it very hard to trace. I would like to know what this is

 

 

Mysterious black boot floor box.

 

And finally my factory fog light switch on the pod, does not light any fog lights, but has the same effect as the first stage of the rotary light knob. It illuminates the tail lights number plate etc, and when combined with the rotary knob, lights everything but more brightly.

 

Is this normal? Doesn't seem it to me!

 

Any advice appreciated.

 

Thank you guys :)

Easier question then, what does this button do on your car?

 

 

Does it turn your tail lights on.

 

For bonus points, do your tail lights get a bit brighter if you have that button pressed, as well as, your side lights on?

The black box in the boot is for the tails when we upgraded mine to 99's i forgot to reconnect that box and they didnt work. Connected it and bingo all was well.

I see, cheers Ian. This is a daunting fault, there have been quite a few additions and alterations to the standard (and already complicated) light system.

 

Perhaps someone could tell me which diagram I should refer to in the service book.

 

With daytine running lights

With dim dip lights

 

:blink:

 

I think I have dim dip lights????

IIRC the factory fog light switch on my JSPEC car brings the front fogs on, but automatically brings the side lights on at the same time effectively over-riding to position 1....I'll go check....yes it does.

This was the same on my other Zed too.

The mystery continues!

Thanks mate, it certainly does.

 

So when it was consistently displaying the fault. It was immediately popping the footwell 10Amp on the first position.

 

It did it with the HIDs disconnected completely. But I think I will still get rid of them, "simplify and un-knacker" is my new motto.

From what I saw in mine when I had lighting problems...... the black box had loads of dry solder joints on the soldering...... I gave it a make over and removed old solder and resoldered all the joints and cured my intermittent rear lights problem.....

You could check and re solder the circuit to make sure all connections are good..... as long as you can solder okay......

I know that Jeff did a write up on targa drain pipes coming away from connector above the fuse box and making it all wet...... this causes lots of electrical gremlins and green connections.... ???

It could be a bulb gone dead short, a trapped wire shorting out, faulty dimmer switch, dash illumination faulty - short on back of speedo cluster, the main light switch faulty.......

I have even seen someone replace a stop and tail light bulb with a single filament one that shorts both stop and tail connections together causing fuses to blow.....

You haven't replaced any tail light bulbs recently with the wrong type?

 

Multimeter out, set to resistance or ohms with buzzer setting....... remove 10a fuse that blows......

Test switch side of fuse holder between fuse holder and a good earth point. 1st with light switch in off position and then On position and see if it buzzes / reads a short.....

Hard to fault find over internet...... lol

Wish you were closer and I would break out my multimeter and have a look for you........

From what I saw in mine when I had lighting problems...... the black box had loads of dry solder joints on the soldering...... I gave it a make over and removed old solder and resoldered all the joints and cured my intermittent rear lights problem.....

You could check and re solder the circuit to make sure all connections are good..... as long as you can solder okay......

I know that Jeff did a write up on targa drain pipes coming away from connector above the fuse box and making it all wet...... this causes lots of electrical gremlins and green connections.... ???

It could be a bulb gone dead short, a trapped wire shorting out, faulty dimmer switch, dash illumination faulty - short on back of speedo cluster, the main light switch faulty.......

I have even seen someone replace a stop and tail light bulb with a single filament one that shorts both stop and tail connections together causing fuses to blow.....

You haven't replaced any tail light bulbs recently with the wrong type?

 

Multimeter out, set to resistance or ohms with buzzer setting....... remove 10a fuse that blows......

Test switch side of fuse holder between fuse holder and a good earth point. 1st with light switch in off position and then On position and see if it buzzes / reads a short.....

Hard to fault find over internet...... lol

Wish you were closer and I would break out my multimeter and have a look for you........

In my experience of this you need to firstly swap out the 'mystery' black box for another but expect your problem lies in your side light circuit, so it only blows when you have one turn on the knob and/or when you hit the fog light button ? as this also turns on your side light and no nothing goes brighter.

 

You may be pointing the finger at your dipped/hid lights, this is unlikely but don't rule out as your side lights are again on when you go passed position 1 and do the second position on the knob.

 

I would target age related bulb holders in the four corners and of course any botched connections and don't assume under any tape it's fine, rip it off and check.

In my experience of this you need to firstly swap out the 'mystery' black box for another but expect your problem lies in your side light circuit, so it only blows when you have one turn on the knob and/or when you hit the fog light button ? as this also turns on your side light and no nothing goes brighter.

 

You may be pointing the finger at your dipped/hid lights, this is unlikely but don't rule out as your side lights are again on when you go passed position 1 and do the second position on the knob.

 

I would target age related bulb holders in the four corners and of course any botched connections and don't assume under any tape it's fine, rip it off and check.

Look at what I found :)

 

[ATTACH=CONFIG]82997[/ATTACH]

 

I hadn't read your post phutumsch, but

 

Don't assume it's all good under the tape

 

Turned out to be top advice :thumbup: I hope that is it. I have had all the lights out, refreshed a load of connections and weather proofed them with self amalgamating tape. A lot of things that would no doubt have gone crack at some point down the line, now that is pushed further into the future.

Look at what I found :)

 

 

I hadn't read your post phutumsch, but

 

Don't assume it's all good under the tape

 

Turned out to be top advice :thumbup: I hope that is it. I have had all the lights out, refreshed a load of connections and weather proofed them with self amalgamating tape. A lot of things that would no doubt have gone crack at some point down the line, now that is pushed further into the future.

[ATTACH=CONFIG]82998[/ATTACH]

[ATTACH=CONFIG]82999[/ATTACH]

What light was that on Tom ??

What light was that on Tom ??

Front right sidelight

 

[ATTACH=CONFIG]83000[/ATTACH]

 

Can you see on the close up ^ ^ ^ the live and the neutral both bare under the green!

Front right sidelight

 

 

Can you see on the close up ^ ^ ^ the live and the neutral both bare under the green!

Ooh grim !! we found that the n/s/r marker light in your bumper had a very wierd wiring set up ! it had 2 lives on it ! obviously it didn,t work so we had to sort out the connection on that but everything else work fine :huh:

Ooh grim !! we found that the n/s/r marker light in your bumper had a very wierd wiring set up ! it had 2 lives on it ! obviously it didn,t work so we had to sort out the connection on that but everything else work fine :huh:

I found a lot of audio cable and off cuts, bodging a few things today :blink:

I found a lot of audio cable and off cuts, bodging a few things today :blink: