The Morbidmobile Blog

[Laird Scooby]

Originally Posted by TomSaintJames

Oh dear, i'm not sure I should have been told about that...

[Stephen Edwin]

Originally Posted by Laird Scooby

Nothing wrong with fibreglass ..... and countless boat owners too!

It's a very valid material ......

Agreed !!!!!!

And swimming pools !!!!!!






So far as I know it does not conduct electricity.


.

[TomSaintJames]

Hello chaps, still doing the write up from the weekend, re-wiring has occured to not much effect...

HOWEVER, whilst browsing the FAQ page today at lunch, I saw this sentence:

Originally Posted by FAQ

Sockets. [Carl Millard] It appears as though the brake light sockets are specific to each side and that the white socket fits on the right. If reversed, current will flow to the parking lamp and not the brake.

So could this then be relevant to UK spec cars? I have a white bulb holder but I've never used it as all the connectors are quite oxidised (much more so than the two black ones I have). I don't know what a 'parking light' is, I assumed it was the reverse light but the FAQ goes on to talk about the front parking lights, so that can't be right.

I will kick myself quite hard if all I needed was to clean up and install the white bulb holder on the drivers side...

[Laird Scooby]

Yes! And you'd better get your other half to kick you in case you miss that as well!

A parking light is a sidelight or tail light by another name. Most commonly used by the USA as the name for sidelights but is used here as well.

Given the symptoms and this extra bit of knowledge, clean up that white bulbholder and fit it. Trust Volvo to over-complicate bulbholders though!

[TomSaintJames]

White bulbholder fitted, no change! But i'm not sure of the integtrity of it, it's a little battered and the metal parts are all wobbly so i've ordered a new one in the hope that it may make a difference, I also ordered a new drivers side rear light cluster from germany. I finally found one for sale that wasn't over £100!

[Laird Scooby]

Fingers crossed Tom!

[Stephen Edwin]

Tom,

May I try to get my mind un-entangeled about this please.

• Which lights are working and not working now?
• Overall have any lights been got working and if so at what stage, by what method?
• Have you re-wired from the car itself, alongside the hinges, down the fiberglass tailgate, to the light units?
• With continuous wires?
• Where and how did you connect, especially in the car itself?
• Is there "power" at the connections that you wired to in the car itself?
• Is there power at the connections you wired to at the light units?

• Do you have a multimeter and/or test lamp now?
• Is someone pushing the brake pedal for testing, or, have you tried an outward i.e. expendaing carpenters clamp between the seat and the brake pedal?
• Does the ignition need to be on for your brake lights to work?

The new wiring was "obviously needed" after so much time. But there is something more, hopefully something simple.

[Laird Scooby]

Originally Posted by Stephen Edwin

Tom,

May I try to get my mind un-entangeled about this please.

• Which lights are working and not working now?
• Overall have any lights been got working and if so at what stage, by what method?
• Have you re-wired from the car itself, alongside the hinges, down the fiberglass tailgate, to the light units?
• With continuous wires?
• Where and how did you connect, especially in the car itself?
• Is there "power" at the connections that you wired to in the car itself?
• Is there power at the connections you wired to at the light units?

• Do you have a multimeter and/or test lamp now?
• Is someone pushing the brake pedal for testing, or, have you tried an outward i.e. expendaing carpenters clamp between the seat and the brake pedal?
• Does the ignition need to be on for your brake lights to work?

The new wiring was "obviously needed" after so much time. But there is something more, hopefully something simple.

Last question answered first - no, the brake lights work without the ignition.

As far as i understand what's happened so far, Tom started with problems with the right hand stop/tail and fog light not working. As far as i can work out, despite his best efforts, nothing has changed except the extra lights in the bumper now work when the tailgate is opened.

Putting everything together, i suspect the tailgate load area light switch controls a relay to bring the bumper lights on and quite possibly those diode arrays are used to prevent both sets being on at the same time and/or back-feeds.

Not having seen it in the flesh i can't be certain and this is one of those threads that really shows up the limits of remote diagnosis, especially with someone like Tom who is getting a baptism of fire in basic autoelectrics.

[Stephen Edwin]

David,

Have you tested Tom's brake lights without the ignition switched on? His actual vehicle? This is a check absolute basics time.

The diodes are a tad of a mystery and mysteries are not good when trying to solve problems.

Tom,

Additional question. You have searched around the vehicle. Have you found anything that might be a relay as surmised by David? Wired to the load area light switch?

Overall,

If "we" work through the basics, like my list of questions. We might find some definite information.

There really might come a time to get an auto electrician to look in to this, checking out the actual wiring on the actual vehicle.


.

[Laird Scooby]

Originally Posted by Stephen Edwin

David,

Have you tested Tom's brake lights without the ignition switched on? His actual vehicle? This is a check absolute basics time.

.

It's also common sense time Stevo. Volvo wired every 7xx that i've ever known and published wiring diagrams to support the fact that the brake lights work WITHOUT the ignition being on. Common sense dictates the converters would NOT alter this, only altering the wiring at the rear of the vehicle. It's extra work for no possible gain.

The things we do know are that the cluster is suspect (Tom has ordered a replacement), it had a suspect bulbholder on the stop/tail bulb (Tom has ordered a replacement for this also) so those two faults should hopefully be eliminated soon.

Then we may actually see the light at the end of the tunnel without worrying it's someone with a torch bringing even more faults!