Under bonnet Fuse Box

[Retired TD]

I wish to remove the orange fuse box connector which I believe has some corrosion present due to water ingress, the usual frustrating problem of the 2011 Picasso C3.

I just wish to see if it is possible to clean the contact to see if it just may be possible to restore the 'side light' connection which has failed to deliver power to the lamp.

I see that the Fuse Box is secured in position by one retaining nut and would it be normal procedure to remove this nut to be able to lift up the Fuse Box to give me more room to remove the 'Orange connector plug' to see what condition it is in?

I have been advised to firstly remove the negative battery terminal then wait for about 30mins before removing this Fuse Box Orange plug.
Also it looks like I would need to remove the 'Positive terminal' first followed by the 'negative terminal' but this is opposite of what advice I read somewhere.

Kind regards
Robert

[PaulC5]

When disconnecting and connecting the battery do not do it too quickly so the bsi has time to shutdown or you can end up with odd electrical problems. You should only need to disconnect the negative terminal. There is a bsi reset procedure you could follow https://www.frenchcarforum.co.uk/forum/ ... 51&t=61997

[wheeler]

wait for about 30mins before removing this Fuse Box Orange plug.

Where did you hear that? you can remove the fusebox immediately after disconnecting the battery.

Normally if possible you should remove the negative terminal first but on may PSA cars now this is not possible due to the design of the battery cover. disconnecting the positive is fine just make sure you cover the terminal to prevent accidental reconnection.
As above make sure to let the BSI power down fully before disconnecting the battery.

[Retired TD]

Thank you for your input wheeler. today
I think that this comment is possible 'old school'. because years ago for instance when our tvs had valves, cathode ray tubes, capacitors etc which all contained 'Residual Energy'. So it was wise to leave the component a period of time to disperse this energy otherwise you could get voltage shock when your hand, for instance touched the framework.

My concern in this post is - I see that the Fuse Box is secured in position by one retaining nut and would it be normal procedure to remove this nut to be able to lift up the Fuse Box to give me more room to remove the 'Orange connector plug' to see what condition it is in?

Thank you

Robert

[Retired TD]

I managed to remove the Orange Plug which was identified by the Auto Electrician as being the problem as some of the pins had eroded and required a replacement Fuse Box.

I purchased a under bonnet fuse box through Ebay to replace the faulty one which failed its MOT due to a side light power failing.
I did try cleaning the pins within the plug and found one pin had been corroded through and was lying on the base of the plug, so I cleaned out most of the mess and reassembled the Fuse Box.

The ingress of water eroded a few pins. Most of the oxidation I cleaned out with DeoxIT D5 but it was really embedded too far to remove, but worth a try I thought.

Today the Auto Electrician fitted the replacement Fuse Box so all should now be good, hopefully.

Thank you for your interest

Robert

[wurlycorner]

Glad to hear you've sorted this.

I recently found quite surprisingly bad corrosion to this terminal on my C5 X7, as well. I cleaned it all off (there is some pitting but decided it was still serviceable) with wire brush/electro-clean, used some di-electric grease to protect between any near (but not quite contacting) areas and then after re-assembly sprayed it all down with a protective coat of Dinitrol ML after, to protect from any future corrosion.

[Retired TD]

Many thanks Iain for your comments. The damage which I experienced, which I believe occurred before my ownership, blocked drain holes below the windscreen maybe although the belief is that capillary action of water travelling along the harness from the windscreen washer bottle motor sounds rather bizarre but strange things can happen in life, but surely Citroen would have advised owners maybe? No I don't think they would admit a design fault. Regards

Robert