electrics

[al/c]

i decided to change a couple of dash light bulbs that were blown this morning, anyhow after doing them i found that i had no dash lights, indicators, central locking or windscreen wipers. checked all fuses and they are ok. any ideas please.

 

[uHu]

Which car? version, market, engine, MY/month.
Mine has 3 fuseboxes, and fusible links in 2 locations.

 

[StarCruiser]

Retrace your steps Al. If you're anything like me you'll have left a plug off. If not that, check every wire that goes into the plugs. With everything connected, switch things on that would get lights up and wiggle the plugs and the foil circuit board on the back of the instrument cluster while looking out for any signs of light. Sounds like a missing earth connection as the whole thing is dead. Do you have a dash light dimming control? Check this has not had a plug left off the back.
Did you pull the plugs out with the wires or have a tricky time with one particular one? If so, look there first.
As above, check all fuses, I think the 'dome' fuse under the bonnet does a lot of this stuff.

 

[uHu]

Common fuses for these areas are, on the early years, AM1-1 - 80A, AM1-2 - 20A, And a fusible link. But it could easily be a plug, yes. E.g. for the Body ECU.

 

[al/c]

all sorted, it seems that a couple of the fuses were slightly corroded, not blown but cleaned up and all working again.

 

[StarCruiser]

Nice one Al. Start with the easy/daft things first.

 

[nathanrobo]

For anyone reading this with a similar problem - it's worth making sure that you get all of the fuse locations.

• There's the big box on the n/s under the bonnet
• There's another small box between the box above and the inner wing - could be over looked
• There's the fusible links on the offside under the bonnet on the positive battery terminal
• There's the fuse behind the little 'kick panel' on the left of the footwell - passenger side.

If it's dash lights, then it's most likely to be the 15 amp fuse behind the little kick panel. It's on the middle row and the fuse box cover shows it as "gauges".

 

[uHu]

For anyone reading this with a similar problem - it's worth making sure that you get all of the fuse locations.

• There's the big box on the n/s under the bonnet
• There's another small box between the box above and the inner wing - could be over looked
• There's the fusible links on the offside under the bonnet on the positive battery terminal
• There's the fuse behind the little 'kick panel' on the left of the footwell - passenger side.

If it's dash lights, then it's most likely to be the 15 amp fuse behind the little kick panel. It's on the middle row and the fuse box cover shows it as "gauges".

That list is for the early years. After facelift/5-speed/etc, the under-bonnet box is not divided in two, and there's another location at the RHS kick panel (in addition to the LHS kick)