Help please....200tdi rear indicators driving me mad!

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Carling units are the way to go. The Chinese made Lucas replica's are diabolical. Re' wiring, it'd be worth checking the condition of your wiring at all four corners where the wires are at peak load. Discovered on mine that all the wires were knackered, brittle and many with burnt out insulation...this despite the wiring tape wrap looking in tip top condition. I've replaced/re-wired the whole lot.
 
Have a look underneath where the main loom comes out of the chassis and the enters the hole in the rear x member, had to repair some there the other day, were in a shocking state, only 27yrs old cheapskate land rover:D
 
lynall said:
Have a look underneath where the main loom comes out of the chassis and the enters the hole in the rear x member, had to repair some there the other day, were in a shocking state, only 27yrs old cheapskate land rover:D
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+1 to this, really, LR wiring is of the lowest quality. Compared to the classic cars I've owned over the past 30 years the cabling/cable quality is appalling. I've used multi-core 16A trailer cable for the rear lighting with multiway connectors inside the wiring covers. It's installed a treat and makes life very easy for any future fault finding.

eta I know of a 1920's Austin 7 with original wiring that's of better wiring quality than modern Defenders o_O
 
v8250 said:
+1 to this, really, LR wiring is of the lowest quality. Compared to the classic cars I've owned over the past 30 years the cabling/cable quality is appalling. I've used multi-core 16A trailer cable for the rear lighting with multiway connectors inside the wiring covers. It's installed a treat and makes life very easy for any future fault finding.

eta I know of a 1920's Austin 7 with original wiring that's of better wiring quality than modern Defenders o_O
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My 59 s2 still has the original loom.
We spend an awful lot of our time at work fixing the new style thinwall wiring on the trucks and trailers, proper crap, and under 10yrs old as well!
The 7 core trailer wiring is quite good, but it does fail if used in a situation where it constantly moves.
 
i gave up with my 90 rear indicator wiring it had been bodged so many times pre me owning it so

i ran a live from front indicator to the rear indicator and a new earth drilled into body.

never been a problem since...

lol

am goining to re wire mine and put a more modern blade fuse box in one of these days my old gal is on the bloody glass fuses, always dodgy as heck
 
"Just because the light makes a “ground” doesn’t mean the path back to the battery negative is correct and uninterrupted. Personally, when I rebuilt mine, I done away with ALL body “grounds” and made them all connect directly to the battery negative. It saves all this hassle."

As Mick and others have already said, relying on the body / chassis for a good earth is not always reliable. On an older vehicle, even if you clean the area you are attaching the cable to what is the path like the rest of the way?
Even with a new rebuild I wouldn't reply on it. In an attempt to eliminate galvanic corrosion we prime & paint panels, we paint / underseal our chassis, we fit insulating gaskets / sealant / nylon washers and grease fixings. Having done that we then hope that we have failed in our attempt to keep dissimilar metals apart and that we actually have a complete earth path all the way from one end to the other!
When I fitted a new chassis to my 90 earlier this year I did what I have always done before and done away with all body / chassis earths and instead everything connects to one of several common earth points which are in turn connected (using suitably sized cable of course) back to the main earth point (i.e. the -VE terminal on the battery). Simple and reliable.

The Carling upgrade is a good one, I have had Carling switches (including hazard) on my 90 for 8-years now and they are a good quality switch.
Make sure you get the correct wiring diagram, I bought mine from MudStuff and they provided one. Will it fit in the RH switch panel? Not certain about that but then again it didn't worry me as mine is mounted in a Raptor console.

As above about the old fuseboxes.
I replaced mine with a pair of 8-way earlier this year, fit neatly into the space and just a require a change of connector but this is the perfect time to check the condition of your harness, if you snip off the old terminations and see the copper is black / green then it is time to replace the harness as as you are just leaving yourself open to more problems in the future.

DSCF0025.JPG
 
Litch said:
As Mick and others have already said, relying on the body / chassis for a good earth is not always reliable. On an older vehicle, even if you clean the area you are attaching the cable to what is the path like the rest of the way?
Even with a new rebuild I wouldn't reply on it. In an attempt to eliminate galvanic corrosion we prime & paint panels, we paint / underseal our chassis, we fit insulating gaskets / sealant / nylon washers and grease fixings. Having done that we then hope that we have failed in our attempt to keep dissimilar metals apart and that we actually have a complete earth path all the way from one end to the other!
When I fitted a new chassis to my 90 earlier this year I did what I have always done before and done away with all body / chassis earths and instead everything connects to one of several common earth points which are in turn connected (using suitably sized cable of course) back to the main earth point (i.e. the -VE terminal on the battery). Simple and reliable.
View attachment 226400
Click to expand...

I can’t advise this enough. Every owner who tries to stop galvanic corrosion, then goes on to use body earths, is asking for trouble. It’s so simple to run a pair of 2.5mm earths from the battery back to the rear light clusters, and forward to the front light clusters. Combine them with a new bulkhead earth, and almost every possible earth fault will have been eliminated, not to mention reducing the possibility of galvanic corrosion due to having less “potential” between panels.
 
Al2O3 said:
Could it be that the earth for the indicators wasn't working and so the splice in to the fog earth was for the indicators and not the other way around!
Click to expand...

if you could map out the true direction of current flow in one of these 30yr old vehicle I think it would be astonishing. Probably find everything is actually earthed via the windscreen wipers.
 
Here's some more normal...thought it worth checking the fuel sender wiring. Yep, more LR variable earth wiring...so made up a new loom this morning. The old wiring looked perfectly fine from the insulation wrap, but underneath :(

20201230_100535.jpg


20201230_114650.jpg


and a comparison
20201230_114314.jpg
 
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