240 General: Washer pump and electrical matters

[DJ]

I've just acquired a 92 Torslanda which has the usual few new car niggles, most urgent for attention are:

1. Windscreen/headlight washer pump is leaking where the two tubes attach to the connectors on the mounting angle- is this a common problem and is it terminal for the pump? Also, is it possible to find an aftermarket replacement or would it be a scrapper search?

2. Rear n/s foglight not working. I've tried replacing bulbs with 2 new ones (Volvo dealer supplied) and cleaned the contacts with fine emery and also checked the connectors. Earth seems OK as the other lights in the cluster are OK. Looking at the wiring it seems that the tailgate wiring has been replaced and some splicing has been done as there is a connector and some other splicing on the bundle of wires in the spare wheel compartment. The supply lead to the foglight looks OK from what can be seen (o/s fog light works OK). Would it be worth changing the relay or does anyone have any other ideas?
Any help, as ever, gratefully received.

[Andrew (UK)]

Just get a replacement pump or three from a scrap yard, much less hassle than trying to bodge in an aftermarket pump.

After some point only the o/s fog light was wired up. There is some half baked justification floating around about the brain being able to respond to an asymmetric lighting pattern more quickly than a symmetric one (but if that is so why don't they apply it to the brake lights instead?). Personally in the fog I want as much light showing as possible. If the fog is that thick you should be moving so slowly that response time is irrelevant anyway. So I would check that there is actually voltage being fed to the socket and then trace the wiring back. I don't think there is a relay involved at all. You can always just add a wire from the o/s light to the n/s light.

HTH,
Andrew

[DJ]

Thanks for you help, Andrew-
I've done what you suggest for the foglight and it works now, though the bulb failure warning light is still on. It seems that the high level brake light sometimes goes on (albeit showing very faintly) when the brake pedal is not depressed. Whoever rewired the tailgate must have had trouble getting to the wiring while wearing that stetson hat! Interestingly, the car came from a dealer who'd MOT'd it prior to my collecting it last Friday. There was no way that light was working at the time.
My 91 240 GL on which all lights work perfectly (and had a new tailgate loom fitted, properly, in 2000) has a purple wire with a connector which is not connected to anything. On the 92 Torslanda it was this that was connected to the offending foglight.

[Andrew (UK)]

The rear fog lights are not part of the bulb failure circuit. The most common reason I have found for the bulb failure light to come on is the front side lights having dodgy sockets causing one side to be brighter than the other. As the bulb failure light is triggered by differences in current from one side to the other this will make the light come on. Reputedly even different makes of bulb from one side to the other can do it as well but I have not had any problems with that.

You only need two brake lights showing to pass an MOT.

Andrew

[AdamskiC70]

You only need a o/s/r fog light for mot thats why you haven't got one on the n/s as it is not needed in the uk by mot law here

Adam

[DJ]

Further to odd rear end electrics (the car having been re-tailgate wired before I bought it):
I spliced a supply from the working foglight's supply and I now have 2 working correctly (thanks for the advice on that, Andrew).
The high level brake light is on all the time (dull) when the tail lights are on but goes out when the "body" brake lights come on (on pressing the brake pedal). I've tried swapping the connectors over tail/brake thinking that that's why but it doesn't work. I expected to see 2 wires on the connector to the brake light circuit, the extra going up into the tailgate for the high level but there aren't. The supply must therefore tap in to the main wiring bundle (the one behind the spare wheel in the rear LH wing) further forward in the car before disappearing up the D-pillar with the other tailgate wiring but I can't trace it.
Would it be feasible to tap into the main brake light supply and run a wire to the high level as in the fog light fix? Any ideas, Guys, please?!
Thanks,
Dave

[DJ]

I forgot to mention that the tailgate had been re-wired amateurishly; the wires pass from the body throught the hinge (as normal) and then go into the tailgate through the bolt access holes- it looks like a hybrid scheme using part original routing and part re-routed (as on the postings suggesting bypassing the hinges and emerging from the headlining). Incidentally, the where the wires pass through the hinge, someone has applied a mastic type sealant and painted it black!

[Andrew (UK)]

Sounds like a ground problem to me. There should be a short black wire connecting the two halves of each hinge to give a good ground path from the tailgate to the body. There may also be a problem grounding the rear light cluster as well. I had a problem that the ground point had rusted out. So check the grounds for both rear light clusters as well as the tailgate hinges. The wires in the hinges are held in place by a soft, black and very sticky goo, this is the original method.

Andrew

[DJ]

Thanks again, Andrew.
Food for thought there. On the goo- I've recently sold a 91 240 GL which had had a replacement tailgate harness done by a main dealer in 2000. The wires at the hinge were very neat and there was no goo visable outside. On my Torslanda, the goo is visable outside when the tailgate is closed. It's white and had been painted over in black(and some goo has solidified on the upper outsde surfaces of the hinges- it looks awful! I've acquired some hinges from a scrapper in case there is lasting surface damage when I come to neaten up.
Dave