Freelander 1 Instrument Cluster Lights Won’t Switch Off

Hi All. It’s been a while. Hope you’re all well. I’ve performed many repairs and patches to my F1 V6 but I have an issue that I’m scratching my head with...

I had a bad water ingress and the fuse board had to be replaced because there was bad water corrosion.

Anyway, since having it back, the instrument cluster lights will not switch off and if I didn’t disconnect the battery after each use, the battery would die. Of course this is a massive PITA.

Suspecting there could be water damage to the headlight / indicator stalks, I bought a used replacement however this has not fixed the issue. Because I’m popping the bonnet so often, I actually snapped the bonnet release cable the other day and had to take to a wrench to loosen the bolts surrounding the under bonnet catch it to get in the engine bay to disconnect the battery.

I pulled out and tested the usual suspect fuses - F14 and F16 but no joy. My garage are talking about taking the whole dashboard apart and looking at wiring but I’d rather avoid this if possible. Oh, just to mention the clock is off until I switch the lights ‘on’. It’s weird.
Any suggestions? Thanks.

It's obviously drawing current from somewhere.

I think I'd be taking the dash out myself, but how deep was this water? If it was flooded, the you need to inspect all the wiring, up to and preferably above the highest point that the water reached.

Hi Nodge.

Water was coming in through the sunroof and was running down the windscreen and down the pillars etc. At first I tried a clear caulk around the sunroof but that didn’t really work so I ended up using gaffer tape.

I guess water went into the dash and ran down into the fuse box under the steering wheel. One night my neighbour called me to say my headlights were on, which was weird. Then the next day when I was driving it to the garage the fuse box started smoking like it was going to catch on fire!

They cleared the water lines and replaced the fuse box with a second hand one they sourced. I guess they didn’t notice the dashboard lights were on before they handed it back to me as it was really sunny and you could only see them in the dark. They said it may need a new battery because it was going flat all the time but now we know why...

My driveway is on a slight incline so water filled up in the rear footwells. It was quite a lot of water at the time. No water ingress now though thankfully but am scratching my head with this one. The garage which initially helped me are booked solid for weeks and weeks ahead. My other garage which does more basic work, to be honest I’m not really hopeful that they’ll be able to identify the issue and may cause further damage or other issues by taking the whole dash apart.

I’m going to collect the new bonnet release cable from Bearmach tomorrow but that workaround is not ideal because I’m worried about burning the rear window motor out as every time I reconnect the battery, it of course drops. Connecting / disconnecting the battery on each use is also a potch and is extra wear on what are parts of a 17 year old car anyway.

Does anyone know any good but reasonable auto electricians in South Wales?

Thanks.