a few electricals problem

[adambear]

Hi guys im a new proud owner of a nice  1993 FD3 and just got it knowing there were a few little problems to iron out but would like a bit of advice to check first if they are common. There is a problem with the speedometer cluster, none of the guages light up, the speedo and rev counter dont work but the fuel/oil/temp all do, and im not sure if this is related but the tail lights dont work but the breaks do, i changed a couple of blown fusses and the tail lights worked for a short time then blew again so i fitted more fueses and not wont at all. Any ideas and i look forward to hearing off you and do you have any meets in essex?
 
Adam

[trotter]

Welcome matey.

Dash lights are notoriously crap, could be a couple of blown bulbs, or more likely an earthing problem.

The tail light problem is a common one. The earths on the bulb holders are rubbish! I just fixed this one myself at the weekend. What happens is that because the bulbs are dual circuit (one filament for tail light, separate one for brake lights) they have separate lives but a common earth. If you get an earth problem, only one or the other will work. This creates a short circuit which more often than not will blow the fuses. Get your hands on a multimeter (£15 or so from maplins, b&Q etc), whip out the lights and test them against the rear earth point beneath the boot trim (the reverse side of the rear bumper). Find out the bad earth and sort it out! Job done...

HTH

graeme

[adambear]

Thanks that\'s really helpfully I will have a bash on the weekend and get some pictures up

[trotter]

No probs matey.

For the tail lights, take the bulb out the holder and you will see two contacts at the bottom where the bulb touches it. Turn the multimeter dial to the resistance (Ω) symbol. Put the red probe of the multimeter against one of these and the black against the metal bulb holder WITH THE IGNITION OFF!!

Do this for both positive contacts (one for tail, one for brakes). You should see no significant resistance on screen. Ideally you want to see 0.02Ω or simething quite low. If you see nothing wild here then you can assume that the problem is not with the bulb holder. Redo the test with the positive contacts on the bulb and the main earth point on car (take out boot trim and you will see it attached to the rear panel just below the centre brake light - it\'s a small 10mm bolt with a couple of black wires leading to it. If you see significant resistance here then you can determine that there is a leak somewhere in the wire between the bulb holder and main earth.

There is other ways to do this, but this way worked fine for me and showed me that the negative connection at the side of the bulb holder had snapped.

[adambear]

so any ideas on the speedo and rev counter, i took the dials out and all the bulbs looked ok and all the wires were in ok so is there a specific fues for the clocks?