hey again,
ive still not had a chance to look at the idle problem in my other thread, however the headlights have stopped working, meaning i cannot drive the rex at night unless there are street lights present.
ok heres what ive got...
1. side lights work no problems.
2. when i try and flick onto headlights nothing happens.
3. when i try to put the pop up light into the up position using the maintenance knob, nothing happens
4. if i try to flash the main beam, nothing happens.
5. everything else works fine.
what ive done so far...
1. powered the lights using a 12v feed from the relays beside the radiator. all works ok from here.
2. pulled the dash apart and could find only 9v at the live feed for the headlights switch.
3.put a temp 12v feed onto the headlight switch.
now the following happens
1. sidelights work no probs.
2. when i try and flick onto headlights nothing happens.
3. when i try to put the pop up light into the up position using the maintenance knob, they pop up with no lights as they should, regardless of the headlight switch position.
4. when the lights are popped up, the main beam will flash and turn on constant as normal. when i do this the headlights turn on and i can alternate between headlight and main beam as normal.
5. the headlight switch still does nothing.
6 everything else works fine..
im going to double check the power to the indicator cluster just now.
i tried to make it as clear as possible! im confused now :s maybe the switch also? any ideas?
thanks
Richard
FC lights - you\'ve got to love them !
I\'ve had just about all the problems with the lights !
Most of the problems stem from the fact that the +ve feed from the battery via the 30A fuse is split several times to feed the relays and the switch in the car. These splits or joins are made inside the harness that runs in front of the radiator - and get\'s damp and salt in it from years of bad british weather - this leads to corrosion of the joins and bad contacts.
I ended up running a 12V from the battery to a 1-4 way audio block power distributor - then I took a feed from that to the switch, another feed to the HID\'s I fitted, 1 feed for the fog lights I fitted an the remaining feed went to the 12V wire that feeds the relays at the front of the car. I think the 12V feed was Red/Green from memory - but you can wire in parallel to any of the exisiting 12V feeds.
It can take ages to properly troubleshoot where the 12v is failing - you need a lot of patience - a multimeter, and then set about testing the 12V feeds to all the relays, the switch and so on. If you use the multimeter on resistance, and take out the 2 30A fueses for the lights (retractor and lights) you are looking for any tests where the resistance is higher than 1 or 2 ohms. These will indicate a failing connection - I had over 30 ohms on one of my connections - that\'s not even enough to power the relays with side lights on.
Symptoms I had are:
- Retractor wouldn\'t work - or would close the lights again when the headlights were switched on.
- Washer would only work if the headlights were off - so had to use the maintenance switch and wash the lights with them off.
- Relays would \'buzz\'
- Lights would go dim or off at odd times
Maybe if you get just the headlights working, you could take the retractor fuse out and manually wind the lights up, it wouldn\'t be ideal, but at least you could drive in the dark until its sorted!
i think its just going to be loads of farting about to sort this.
i just put power through the lights at the relay, and measured the voltage in each socket at the switch end(inside the car), but i have no idea what ones should give a 12v reading. if i had a diagram then i could figure it out. but when i powered the headlights there was 5 or 6 reading 12v and one reading 5v.
11 00 00(plastic)10-xx-xx
00-04-00-00-10-00-11-11
xx- empty and the number relates to the voltage.
no idea what any of this means, maybe someone else will :s
thanks
Richard
I know this won\'t be much of a consolation but even if you have 12v at a certain point which would insinuate whatever you are testing should work-it still might not if you have a high resistance return so like Prof said all you can do is plug at it with a multimeter. I\'m a sparky myself but auto electrics baffle me like the best of them so good luck!!
ok i thought about that post, and to put it simply, what wires do i need to sent power along from the dashboard to get the headlights to turn on?
its a uk series 5
this is the connecter plug
xx- blank space
00-wire connected
00-00-00(plastic)00-xx-xx
00-00-00-00-00-00-00-00
thanks
Richard
This is the connector pin out for light switch on UK car (by colour):
* RG RW gap gap RY RL WG
BR BL B R LO RB BG RG
Colours:
RG - Red/Green - Illumination lamps (on dimmer)
RW - Red/White Hi/Lo Beam switch (ground via a diode when on)
RY - Red/Yellow - Down Retractor signal
RL - Red/Blue - Up Retractor Signal
WG - White/Green (12V from battery via 15A fuse - for side lights)
BR - Black/Red ??
BL - Black/Blue ??
B - Black - Ground
R - Red (12V from Battery via 30A fuse)
LO - Blue/Orange - washer motor 12V when pressed
RB - Red/Black - Sidelights
BG - Black/Green - Fog Light Relay - Dip/Dim Relay (behind glove box)
The wiring diagram is very confused - and gives 2 different connection layouts for the same switch !?
Anyway - if you have a long enough multimeter lead - measure between the battery positive or the lights fuse and the Red 12V on the back of the switch - you should see very low resistance (less than 1 ohm) - more than that and you might have problems.
Then switch your multimeter back to voltage reading, connect the black probe to a known good earth and use the red probe to measure voltages on the connector :
Then you can check the retractor system. With 12V on the switch - you should be able to see 12V on either the Red/Yellow or Red/Blue retractor control wires depending on the manual switch position.
You can test the washer switch - look for 12V on the Blue/Orange wire when you press the button.
Finally, with headlights selected on the switch - both the Black/Green and Red/White wires will be showing nearly 0 volts (they are grounded via diodes within the switch). They will normally read 12V or there abouts when lights are off or set to sidelights.
Hope that\'s not too complicated :eek:
he he he i had exactly the same probs !!
i have a write up somewhere about how i fixed mine ( with a smiliar pin layout to yours )
let me see if i can find it
oh yeah another toy to invest in - buy a power probe off ebay .. makes jobs like this sooo much easier !
ah i see you found my thread ! LOL
http://mazdarotaryclub.com/forums/showthread.php?t=32221
and in the end i think i ran 2 new wires - one to the switch plug in the car and one to a relay at the front of the car
Quote from: Prof;664632The wiring diagram is very confused - and gives 2 different connection layouts for the same switch !?
:
i think mine will be the other layout, the top two spaces on the right are both blank on mine :s
im off to give it a go, fingers crossed i can get a result!:2Confused
richard
im assuming on the headlight relay there should be a 12v reading from both the coil feeds? only one is producing any power!
richard
Rich,
neither layout appeared to match yours - is it a UK car?
As for the relay - if you\'ve got 12v one side of it - then a multimeter should show 12v the other side if it\'s not energised, close to 0v if it is.
And Grinder is right - powerprobe is an awesome bit of test kit - visual/audio indication of 12v and ground, you can inject 12v or ground into anything - great for energising relays, lights etc.
Its elford tims old car, as far as i know its a uk series 5 convertible. im going to get the switches from PDTAYLOR and try them. i got the pop up lights to work via the maintenance swtch by adding a 12v feed to the switch, but i suspect the switch may be knackered.
also in my mucking about managed to get smoke comming from the indicator stalk... :eek: the indicators work ok, but the lights dont flash now... so i think i knackered that! all in all no worse than i was before really! cant do much till i get a new switch.
richard
i did that with mine - added 12v to the wrong place and cooked the switch :D
:xconfused
Quote from: Prof;664632This is the connector pin out for light switch on UK car (by colour):
* RG RW gap gap RY RL WG
BR BL B R LO RB BG RG
Colours:
RG - Red/Green - Illumination lamps (on dimmer)
RW - Red/White Hi/Lo Beam switch (ground via a diode when on)
RY - Red/Yellow - Down Retractor signal
RL - Red/Blue - Up Retractor Signal
WG - White/Green (12V from battery via 15A fuse - for side lights)
BR - Black/Red ??
BL - Black/Blue ??
B - Black - Ground
R - Red (12V from Battery via 30A fuse)
LO - Blue/Orange - washer motor 12V when pressed
RB - Red/Black - Sidelights
BG - Black/Green - Fog Light Relay - Dip/Dim Relay (behind glove box)
OK back on track, this is the layout of my plug, similar, but in a kind of reverse order?
WG - RL - RY(PLASTIC)RW - XX - XX
RG - BG - RB - LO - R - B - BL - BR
Quote from: Prof;664632Anyway - if you have a long enough multimeter lead - measure between the battery positive or the lights fuse and the Red 12V on the back of the switch - you should see very low resistance (less than 1 ohm) - more than that and you might have problems.)
i read 30ohm on this wire. so this needs a rewire! one problem solved. :Party
where do the other cables draw their power?
Quote from: Prof;664632Then switch your multimeter back to voltage reading, connect the black probe to a known good earth and use the red probe to measure voltages on the connector
WG - RW - RED - BL - BR all have around 9-11.5 volts going to them with no switch. BG reads 4 volts.
Quote from: Prof;664632Then you can check the retractor system. With 12V on the switch - you should be able to see 12V on either the Red/Yellow or Red/Blue retractor control wires depending on the manual switch position.
this works perfectly with the maintenance switch. but not with the headlight switch with the new 12v feed. could it be the switch? or wireds burnt out in the loom?
Quote from: Prof;664632Finally, with headlights selected on the switch - both the Black/Green and Red/White wires will be showing nearly 0 volts (they are grounded via diodes within the switch). They will normally read 12V or there abouts when lights are off or set to sidelights.
Hope that\'s not too complicated :eek:
i\'ll check next, the battery died :2Rolleyes
thanks for keeping with me!!
richard
Quote from: grinder;664748i did that with mine - added 12v to the wrong place and cooked the switch :D
how long did it take you to solve before wanting to burn it... err hi mr insurance, it must have been an electrical fault that caused the fire:flamed
richard
those readings sound about right.
The 4v on BG is possibly a bit odd - that wire goes to the fog light relay and also the dip/dim relay. You could unplug both of those relays - the fog light relay is in the front of the car (in the batch in front of the radiator) and the dip/dim relay is a small grey box behind the glove box - mine was easy to find as it was dangling down :)
With both unplugged there should be nothing on that wire if the switch is unplugged as well.
As to the pop up\'s. On the UK car this a wierdly complicated circuit that operates the pop ups.
Inside the switch, there is a small relay operated by the headlight switch - it\'s wired in with the maintenance switch (in series).
Basically when the lights are off, 12V from the red wire passes through the relay contacts to the switch - and it can feed either down or up signals - so you can raise and lower the lights. When the lights are turned on, the relay contacts switch over - now only the up signal has 12v through the relay - the maintenance switch is no longer in circuit. The BG wire is actually the feed from the other end of this internal relay.
It gets complicated on the UK car by the dip/dim circuit. This adds an additional relay in series with the light switch (in the same pattern - kind of like cascaded). This relay gets it\'s control signal for the coil from the dip/dim module which operates both the new up/down relay and another relay that switches a power resistor into the dipped headlights wire. With the engine on and sidelights selected the lights are supposed to pop up and will be dimmer than normal.
You can make the lights behave like the US models by unplugging the dip/dim relay module behind the glove box.
Quote from: richrx;664779how long did it take you to solve before wanting to burn it... err hi mr insurance, it must have been an electrical fault that caused the fire:flamed
richard
ha ha ha took me a good few nights to sort it out
at one point i ended up with a load of wire wedged into the battery and into the back of the switch / relays
got it working ( aswell as using the power probe ) and then just hard wired them correctly
if you disconnect the pop up lights relay, and the headlights relay, should the lights still pop up via the swith in the cabbin?
Not if you unplug the pop up relay - the lights relay isn\'t needed to make them popup, but disconnecting the pop up relay breaks the circuit for the switch.
Quote from: Prof;664859Not if you unplug the pop up relay - the lights relay isn\'t needed to make them popup, but disconnecting the pop up relay breaks the circuit for the switch.
ok, thats happened twice now :3Confused
still proding away at the moment, checking wires etc.
richard
Quote from: richrx;664868ok, thats happened twice now :3Confused
still proding away at the moment, checking wires etc.
richard
Just had another look at the circuit - looks like they can go up, it\'s the down control that\'s interrupted by the external relay - that\'s if the circuit is to be believed ! lol
If you unplug the relay can you put the lights down if they are up?
the pop up mechanism works perfectly if i take out the 4 pin headlight relay, so im thinking the problems here!
i think im almost at the bottom of it :)
richard
is the relay working OK - you can test with some wires and battery and you should beable to hear it "click over" and then "click back"
i have a RAFT of relays in the garage - so if you can prove its at fault i can send you one
im just about to head out and look at her again. i dont think it is working, theres no click when i put power to it :(
is it the two coil plugs that need powered to get a click noise?
richard
Quote from: richrx;665486im just about to head out and look at her again. i dont think it is working, theres no click when i put power to it :(
is it the two coil plugs that need powered to get a click noise?
richard
Yep - and when you do it, just don\'t be holding both terminals at the same time :Nono!
right im quite excited!
i got them working...kind of, but i think i know the cause..
1. connect 12v to the red wire at the switch and the pop up lights work, but the headlights still wont go on.
2. connect an earth to the white/green wire at the 4 pin relay, the relay clicks the lights go on, and the pop up lights still work. but obviously the lights dont go off.
so im assuming ive got a knackered switch, which isnt grounding the wire as it should?
please say im right :)
richard.