Strange electrical issues happening SOLVED : )

[HDI Dave]

Hi all,

Got a worrying situation which seems to be getting worse.
It started in the winter:
1.) The wipers suddenly stopped,mid flow,in a rainstorm,and i had to pull into a layby. I sussed that if i tap the wiper stalk,they work. It still happens now,so i thought it might be the stalk..

2.) Then the whole dashboard/instrument/radio panel lights didn't come on when i put the headlights on. Again,messing with the twist light stalk cures it..strange, both stalks

3.) Then wifey goes out,last night,and reports on her shortish trip there (school meeting),that the battery light was on,faintly. It was a foul night and on her return trip she had the blower on full,radio, lights etc and again, the battery light came on faintly but..the radio and blower stopped working...

At first,when she mentioned the battery light i thought of the alternator,but it's been running fine.
How can all these electrics suddenly misbehave,are they all connected at some point,is this a known issue,or am i just having plenty bad luck!
I'm not great with electrics,and new to citroens, so any help / input is muchly appreciated.

Cheers, Dave.

[HDI]

This happened to mine the other day , it was a fuse , but the fuse for the electric windows !!!

[HDI]

The fuse in my case was number 30 located in the fuse box to the right of the steeering wheel and below the dash beneath the drop down cover.

[HDI Dave]

This happened to mine the other day

Did you get all my symptoms,or just some? So 1st port of call is checking all the interior fuses then. Cheers, i'll give it a go.
I was looking at a previous thread and wondered if it could be a bad earth somewhere?

[CitroJim]

I was looking at a previous thread and wondered if it could be a bad earth somewhere?

It could be Dave. It's just the symptom of a dodgy earth. In no way should an electric window fuse cause such bizarre behaviour in unrelated systems..

But then again, this is a Citroen we're speaking of So really anything os possible and quite probable...

[HDI]

This happened to mine the other day quote]

Did you get all my symptoms,or just some? So 1st port of call is checking all the interior fuses then. Cheers, i'll give it a go.
I was looking at a previous thread and wondered if it could be a bad earth somewhere?

Not quite the same symptoms , but close. Main thing was the windscreen wipers , still had the washers though , the battery light was on and the windows didn't work.

A blown fuse also surprised me , but my logic is always to check the simplest things first !! Can't recall why I checked the windows fuse , but it wasn't F24 , which is the wipers !

[acrowot]

Hi all,

Got a worrying situation which seems to be getting worse.
It started in the winter:
1.) The wipers suddenly stopped,mid flow,in a rainstorm,and i had to pull into a layby. I sussed that if i tap the wiper stalk,they work. It still happens now,so i thought it might be the stalk..

2.) Then the whole dashboard/instrument/radio panel lights didn't come on when i put the headlights on. Again,messing with the twist light stalk cures it..strange, both stalks

3.) Then wifey goes out,last night,and reports on her shortish trip there (school meeting),that the battery light was on,faintly. It was a foul night and on her return trip she had the blower on full,radio, lights etc and again, the battery light came on faintly but..the radio and blower stopped working...

At first,when she mentioned the battery light i thought of the alternator,but it's been running fine.
How can all these electrics suddenly misbehave,are they all connected at some point,is this a known issue,or am i just having plenty bad luck!
I'm not great with electrics,and new to citroens, so any help / input is muchly appreciated.

Cheers, Dave.

My Grandson had something similar a couple of years ago, it resulted in a burnt out starter motor, what was happening was that the ignition key was not always returning to the run position but staying in the start position this resulted in no accessory power as these are disconnected in the start position also the starter motor was powered up all the time, I think this was the reason the battery light was dimly lit, I would have thought he would have heard the starter motor spinning but he did not.
He made sure the key was in the run position by turning it back untill we sourced a second hand ignition switch.

[trinity060]

i too have intermittent electrical niggles with the indicators, front windows and wipers , very annoying. a good hard band on the steering colum or the fuse box sorts it. must have a look at it one day

[Sid_the_Squid]

Had something similar once on a Rover 214, random lights on the dashboard, partially working or not working electronic accessories. Started all of a sudden one day, on investigation turned out to be one of the earth cables under the bonnet had corroded away, replaced that and all was well again.

[HDI Dave]

Acro,the starter's fine,so i can rule that out at least!

Had a quick look round,all looks ok. The wife was musing over it last night,as she's paranoid of breaking down,in the middle of town etc..

..it only seems to happen during heavy rain. hmm,could rainwater be getting in somewhere and be shorting something out? If so,anyone any idea of a likely culprit? Must be something fairly exposed,i'm going to check the wiper electrics.
And the main earths,all near the battery,and one on the g/box?

Also,could heavy rain get into the ecu/brain? I speak from experience here, my last car, a fraud mundano,had the ecu in the top left bulkhead.Car died,checked all electrics back to the ecu i thought,but i'm no sparky..friend of a friend (rac)checked,yup,ecu. Leaves and debris had blocked the drain hole,leaving the ecu in it's own private swimming pool...

Going to have a good rummage this weekend,wd 40 it all etc, my mate pressure washed it all,so it's all nice and clean,but a bit naked to the elements i would have thought.

Darned electrics,drive me nuts lol

[CitroJim]

There are a few electrical things that can get in a downpour.

First is the loom interconnect under the passenger seat footwell carpet if you have a scuttle leak but not much is really seriously affected. Mainly speakers and rear electric windows. It can play nasty tricks with the alarm and remote locking because on another smaller interconnect under there is the wiring to the plip receiver in the roof along with sunroof controls. Also on a MK1, the alarm box is under the passenger seats and this can suffer.

All these bits are in a different place in a MK2 so water in the footwells is not quite as devastating as it is on a MK1.

One risky place is the main IC01 interconnect between the engine bay and the cabin electrics. This comprises to giant connectors on the bulkhead and nearly everything imaginable runs through them. Fundamentally they are well weatherproofed but if this has suffered, water could trickle past them and onto the fusebox and relay panel in the drivers footwell.

The engine side of the interconnect can be found under a plastic cover in the drivers side scuttle area. If you look at the drivers side wiper spindle and the area where the washer hose emerges, you will see a plastic panel in the bottom. This covers the interconnects.

It is also part of the scuttle drain as you'll also see a little grating on the plastic panel. It forms the RH drain sump for all water that runs down the windscreen and the scuttle panel actually directs water into this area on purpose.

I'd say if this was blocked or the whole shooting-match were full of leaves preventing the water an easy path to drain away, the interconnects may start to get inundated.

Getting at this panel and the interconnects is hard as the scuttle needs to be removed and then the wiper mechanism needs to be moved out of the way.

Visible leaves are easy enough to get rid of though and the sump can be tested easily enough to prove it has free drainage. Tip a jug of water in the sump and see it run out immediately under the wheel arch. The sump drain is actually just a big hole under the wheelarch protector. This could conceivably be blocked with mud.

Apart from that, I cannot think of anywhere else that a lwak might cause so many weird and wonderful happenings...

It's always worth checking under your passenger carpet for damp..

[HDI Dave]

Jeeez,

Car's let me down, again,actually had to pull over in traffic in the rain, as I could see fek all..no wipers,windows,indicators,nothing,nada,nyet,(-expletive removed-) all,bloody peeved

piece of french crap,frikkin american baseball bat looks good at the minute, so the car's in the doghouse,sulking...

This is why I've probably steeered well clear of french / italian cars/bikes..the electrics are sh!t..they were when I was younger, and they still are!!!!!!!!!! WHY???????????? Too busy havin a frikkin siesta/nap?!!


Ok,rant over

Yes,broke down earlier,near total electrical failure,RAINING.
No dash lights on turning the key to position 1.
Dash lights go on on position 2,fuel pump primes etc, but go all weird/buzz (relay?) when wipers/indicators etc are pressed. No leccy windows.
Car runs fine,just can't see owt,indicate, nightmare in traffic

Scuttle panel looks to have come away a bit,typically,above the wiper mechanism,N/S... Gonna bodge it tomorrow with some thick black gutter sealant tube I've got.
Also going to butcher the scuttle tomorrow to get to the wiper motor plug,see if water's getting in there..

Could this be my issue?

Jim, all the drain holes etc seem fine,I took some leaves out months ago but nothing major.
Carpets seem dry..will check tomorrow.

Sid, earths seem ok also, I'll check again, I'm baffled and miffed, and hopeing it's just the wiper motor plug.

We shall see,
otherwise the car will be on the receiving end of a failed anger management scenario

[HDI Dave]

Waayhey, sussed it

What a strange problem it was!
I threw the towel in in the end,it was aggravating me greatly

Luckily my mate likes challenging leccy problems more than me, so he popped on over,top man

Ok, this morning I tried the wipers..they worked...until I put the indicator on. Then all was dead again...

I had No dash lights on position 1,No wipers(front /back or wash),No indicators,No leccy windows,even the radio died.

We checked all the fuses,inside and out, earths,relays,plugs,wires etc etc, all fine.

*** I was thinking rain was getting into the wiper motor or its plug,as the window scuttle has come away a bit,and it always dies in the rain.. what a Red Herring that turned out to be!!! ***

Scuttle's been bugging me for months now.. winter's here so it HAD to come off,so we took the plunge and stanley knifed it off, nearly had a heart attack at the thought of breaking the windscreen, but we achieved our goal, screen + panel intact, great!
Wiper motor and its plug were ok...hmmm, bummer
By now even my dilligent mate looked to be quite flummoxed,like me..I had to go make a brew before I torched the darned thing...

*** Now then, my mate's rummaging inside,under the steering wheel area,banging it, "Dave, I've found your problem " Banging near the bonnet release lever, the wipers/indicators/EVERYTHING'S working
Whips the under cover off and there's a main power block,brown iirc,few fat wires in it, just connected..and when he touched it it fell apart! Someone must have been in there years ago and not connected it right. Duly clipped together properly and the xant gets a reprieve from the local fire brigade
So it was nothing to do with the rain in the end..it was simply hardly connected, (the plug thing), so it was overloading I suppose, as it always died in the rain,with the lights,indicators,blower,radio and lastly the wipers finished it off, she couldenee take any more capn,she's gonna blow ***
Scuttle was glued back on with a tube of Roof and Gutter sealant..the mrs found it for a pound!...from the pound shop lol

So hopefully that's a fair weight off my shoulders for a bit, I HATE electrics!

Many thanks to all the suggestions, but especially to my mate Ste

P,s, sorry to rattle on, hope it might help anyone else with similar issues...bang the steering column underneath first!!!

Cheers, Dave.

[CitroJim]

Wow, that's a result Dave Excellent stuff!

I guess your mate is awash in beers now for finding that!

bet the fire brigade are relieved