Electrical Issues on my 90! PLEASE HELP!

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benbarnes

New Member
Posts
9
Location
Shillington, Hertfordshire
Hello,

Firstly I apologies if this is in the wrong section, I wasn't sure where to post it.

I'm new to the Land Rover family as I bought my first Land Rover just over a month ago.
Its a 1988 (Defender) 90 which I'm pleased with but it does have a few issues. During its life it has been chopped about and had stuffed added and removed (electrically) many times by the looks of it, so over this past week I have been trying to sort out and tidy the messy random wires that people have added over the years, BUT in my wisdom I have created new problems!
It was all going well until today, after sorting the wires that were behind the stereo/in the middle of the dash I've ended up with 1 tail light and 1 front side light not working, both on the drivers side, the tail light still lights up when I brake but its not on normally and also my heater blower not working as well! They all worked fine this morning but after me fiddling around they now don't and I can't work out why!

Could anyone shed any light as to why this has happened?? and how to fix it??
Has it happened to any of you before??

Its not the fuses as I've checked those and they are all fine, I'm pretty sure its not a bad earth because I haven't touched any earths and like I said earlier they all worked fine a few hours ago.

I also have a couple of other questions....
When you switch the side lights on on a defender are the head lights suppose to come on dimly as well, or should the headlights only come on with the driving beam?? Because mine come on dimly with the sides.
And when I put my full beam on my passenger side headlight goes off completely, but then comes back on when I turn the full beam off, why is this happening?!!?

PLEASE HELP ME ITS DRIVING ME MAD!!

I'm quite mechanically minded but when it comes to electrics I'm not the best so go easy :)

Thanks in advance!
Ben.
 
yes headlights come on dim with side lights.

check the bullb for the left headlight too mate, i know it sounds odd but it could be the main beem element.

right then your wire trouble, im gonna say this will def be as simple as a wire has come lose, or two , playing with wires on a rover isnt a good idea unless theres a need lol, cos this happens .

check the cavles mate, trouble is ithnk your gonna need to strip it down and find the cause of the problem. when people retro fit relays and switches they often remove the item it switched then forgot about the wiring , this causes future problems.im not much more use to you without being there scratching my head with y alol
 
Get a wiring diagram with the colour codes in it and a cheap multimeter and trace the presence of voltage through the wiring. There's probably a point where the left and right side of the wiring join up but I don't know where it is! Same for any wiring really. Passenger side headlight could be fuse or relay - are there separate relays for left and right? - or bulb, or wiring or earth. Most electrical problems come down to poor connections in the end.
 
Ok thanks thats good about the dim headlights, that one thing out the way.

I'll check the bulb tomorrow then, I never actually thought of checking the obvious on that one! haha. Any ideas on what it could be otherwise?

Yeah I'm starting to see that now!! haha. I should have known better really because I've been building and tinkering with old mini's most of my life so I no exactly what old wiring is like once its disturbed. Hopefully if a connection or 2 has come loose its not too deep into the dash because I didn't really move many wires, and I certainly didn't delve deep at all as all the wires were on show.

What are the Cavles you mentioned??
 
Ok thanks for that, I'll have a look into those possibilities.
I haven't got a clue if they have separate relays or not, I'll have to have a look I guess.
Thanks though its all things I can check and rule out.
 
Hello again,
Thanks for all your help so far but I've had another unsuccessful day tinkering with the electrics trying to solve the problems and failed!

Has anyone else got any other ideas what the problem could be??

Thanks again,
Ben.
 
side light are fused as seperate sides ,most of the ones ive worked on head lights dont come on with side lights, tail light coming on with brake is usually poor earth ,ive even had people bring them in with faults with double element bulbs forced in wrong way round
 
rite, mite not b easy but trace the wires back from the broken lights, mite have to take the dash apart a bit but from the sounds of it u might have to when u repair it... if that fails run wire from the opposit lights and work the broken ones from the suply for the working ones... thats a last resort thing tho
 
Jamesmartin: Thanks for your reply, the sides are separate from the headlights and fused separately yes BUT both the bulb and fuse are fine in each light so I can only put it down to a missing connection from where I moved the wires. But the thing is yesterday I only really fiddled with the wires behind the stereo that someone had chopped around with all sorts of weird loops and multiple connections, is there likely to be a connection there for the lights within that part of the loom??
I just thought it was strange how both the side light and rear tail light both stopped working at the same time on the same side and the bulb and fuse are ok. The brake light works fine but the tail light doesn't come on at all.


Discomark:
Thanks for the reply, I did a brief tracing back today and didn't find much, the only thing is before I started to neaten up the wires behind the stereo everything worked fine, and even now all the bulbs and fuses are fine, so its obviously a connection somewhere on the dash as I only fiddled with the wires that were in view so I don't think it will be a connection deep into the loom, and ideas on what colour wires do what?? because a lot have been chopped up.


Thanks again for all your help!
 
Cavles === misprint, should read --- Cables ( Mechanics and Sparkies euphomism for wires ).
 
hahaha i just logged in to find an atrocious spelling mistyake im very sorry it must have thrown you quuite badly.

check the pins in you fuse box, you may have pulled one out, not easy to do but if its already loose then itll fall out with lil effort, i would second the opinion of checking your earth for your tail light,

and im sorry that i said the lights come on dim must have been thinking of something esle
 
theorangebandit said:
hahaha i just logged in to find an atrocious spelling mistyake im very sorry it must have thrown you quuite badly.

check the pins in you fuse box, you may have pulled one out, not easy to do but if its already loose then itll fall out with lil effort, i would second the opinion of checking your earth for your tail light,

and im sorry that i said the lights come on dim must have been thinking of something esle
Click to expand...

Oh right ok so the lights aren't suppose to come on dim then?? Bugger!
Ok i'll check the earth as well, its just another thing to rule out.
Any ideas on what colour wires do what?
 
lol, its annoying when you have a mystery fault i had one yesterday on a wagon and had to re wire most of the dash, then another vehicle last minute also had a similar fault so i gotta rewire that monday lol
 
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