Massive Electrical Failure - Help!!!!

Help, for the love of pikey!

This week i have fitted a set of side repeaters to the S3, and everything was fine. Today i've come to fit my new head lamp units (more modern ones with replaceable H4 bulbs instead of sealed units. i got one side swapped, tried to check it worked proper, And, well, here's the list:

Indicators: Went dead completely, now they are nearly all working, the front passangers is dead, gonna go fetch a new bulb

Wipers/spray: went dead now working again.

Lights: I have side lights, main beam, thats it, dipped is dead, my reverse lights wont come on when i pull the switch, and the fog light will only come on with main pulled back (last two however i think are aftermarket jobs, pull switches on a centre console thing.

My interior light and stereo (both aftermarket obv, put in by previous owner) wont come on.

The fuses are fine, but i was wondering seeing as its all linked together if the one silly stupid flasher bulb dying is gonna cause all that, if not aaarrrrggghhhhh.

oh, and yes, fuses fine, switched fine.

cheers all!

check the contacts in the switch and any earth yer might have disturbed in eyer quest fer better lights

Worth removing the steering column covers, to inspect the connections onto the fusebox. There may be something wrong with those..

Otherwise I'd check earths........ Good luck with it.

metallicachick86 said:

Help, for the love of pikey!

Click to expand...

That, you dunt want!

However, in answer to your problem: Jump in a time machine, go back to before you touched anything and everything worked............then just drive with a head torch on at night.

Yer int having my love. Well not unless yer've got £50 ter spare. But as Slob ses check your earths. it sounds like you've buggered summat up when you were fiddling with the head lamps.

Spent too much on this buggering thing to spare 50 pikey, sorry

Well, had a fiddle, not much is better, i have indicators working, fog lamp switch works with main beam only ?!? i have my interior light and radio back. Main works, side lights work. reverse light switch will work without any lights on?!? Will try tracing the earths properly tomorrow. The lamps are fine, and the switch's are fine in the dash and the steering column.

If all else fails, i'm ripping it out! (well tom is )

Had another look so far this morning. I got the lights on for about 30 seconds then they stopped working again. I've looked at the earth behind the grille, but can't see any more. (doh) I've got a feeling its either the dash boards earth/s or the wire between the dash and lamps, is there plug somewhere inbetween? The switch on the dash and flasher switch on the steering column are fine.

Definately a loose earth Make your self a test lead with a crocobile clip on each end an clip to good earth on chassis and clip the other end to the earth connector on the lamps. If everything works then you'll know it's a bad earth. If there's no change you can repeat the process for every other earth connection till you figure out which ones dodgy.

Cleaned out a couple more, still wasnt working perfectly. So we had another look around. Found out the dipped beam was wired wrong in the dash (previous owner 1 of 15 messing around, must be recent its had a new column switch).

And somehow, they'd (previous nitwits) decided to when they were wiring up the rear lights AND buzzer, to wire the buzzer to the reverse lights and the rear lamps, and a dodgy earth must've been keeping it together, cos once removing the feed from (more likely to) the rear lights, the reverse lamps/beeper now work properly.

If theres one thing we've learnt, old cars, check EVERYTHING! especially on a car with 15 previous owners! (this things had every back on it and loads of stuff, theres 8 holes in the dash where switches used to be.

Cheers everyone as per

Glad you got it sorted.

i know, can drive it now! been waiting 3 weeks