Re: Dendy's 480 Diary
Posted: Thu Aug 23, 2018 4:32 pm
Oli turned up once again at the weekend, this time with no lighting whatsoever on the front of the car. The first order of business was to replace a couple of blown fuses, but that didn't solve the problem. Next, we removed the nosecone to reveal a missing DRL holder (and bulb) and a fairly ruined wiring loom on the passenger side. This seems to be a by-product of the bulbs melting the insides of the clusters - eventually it becomes impossible to properly lock the bulb holders into place due to the deformation of the plastic, at which point they become liable to fall out, get caught in something (e.g. a pop-up mech) and rip the wires out.
Not the end of the world. I made up some new wires and connectors and soldered them to the remaining bits of the loom on the car and fitted a brand new pair of DRL holders and bulbs, after which the pop-ups came back to life and all was well again. The car is a '92 and appears to be of the variety that checks the impedance between the DRLs, and if it detects a mismatch, goes into 'Swedish Bulb Failure Indication Mode' and prevents the pop-ups from moving. By that logic, you could just pull out both bulbs and everything would work fine, and you wouldn't have to worry about DRLs blowing.
Another interesting electrical observation: Oli and I have been using identical LEDs in our DRLs for a while, and both of us have been experiencing a very high frequency of fuses blowing and taking out the front lights. The LEDs in question are these:
I know some others here are using (or have used) them, so bear in mind that they may cause problems. Fuses tend to go when switching the headlights on or off, so my working hypothesis is that they are shoddily built and briefly short out when switching between 21W and 4W modes, which would go some way to explaining the fuses blowing. I haven't confirmed this directly, but Oli is back on ye olde filamentes and has had no problems yet (other than continued melting of the clusters).
Since we had the nosecone off I fitted some new gas struts to the pop-ups. I highly recommend doing this - it doesn't take long and makes a big difference. Oli reported that the headlights were shaking when driving (responsibly) at speed, and just a couple of weeks ago I replaced one of his pop-up motors that had given up, both of which suggest that the struts weren't up to much. Sure enough, the old ones were doing absolutely nothing whatsoever when I took them out, in fact they were so useless that the motors would have had to have been exerting extra effort just to pull them open. The headlights open up much more sharply with the new ones, and don't move around at all once they're up, plus the motors are no longer solely responsible for holding them open. Like I said, quick and easy job to do, and if nothing else it will extend the life of your motors.
All back together and working again. Hang on a minute, what's that car doing in the shed? That doesn't look like my GT! More on that one later...
Not the end of the world. I made up some new wires and connectors and soldered them to the remaining bits of the loom on the car and fitted a brand new pair of DRL holders and bulbs, after which the pop-ups came back to life and all was well again. The car is a '92 and appears to be of the variety that checks the impedance between the DRLs, and if it detects a mismatch, goes into 'Swedish Bulb Failure Indication Mode' and prevents the pop-ups from moving. By that logic, you could just pull out both bulbs and everything would work fine, and you wouldn't have to worry about DRLs blowing.
Another interesting electrical observation: Oli and I have been using identical LEDs in our DRLs for a while, and both of us have been experiencing a very high frequency of fuses blowing and taking out the front lights. The LEDs in question are these:
I know some others here are using (or have used) them, so bear in mind that they may cause problems. Fuses tend to go when switching the headlights on or off, so my working hypothesis is that they are shoddily built and briefly short out when switching between 21W and 4W modes, which would go some way to explaining the fuses blowing. I haven't confirmed this directly, but Oli is back on ye olde filamentes and has had no problems yet (other than continued melting of the clusters).
Since we had the nosecone off I fitted some new gas struts to the pop-ups. I highly recommend doing this - it doesn't take long and makes a big difference. Oli reported that the headlights were shaking when driving (responsibly) at speed, and just a couple of weeks ago I replaced one of his pop-up motors that had given up, both of which suggest that the struts weren't up to much. Sure enough, the old ones were doing absolutely nothing whatsoever when I took them out, in fact they were so useless that the motors would have had to have been exerting extra effort just to pull them open. The headlights open up much more sharply with the new ones, and don't move around at all once they're up, plus the motors are no longer solely responsible for holding them open. Like I said, quick and easy job to do, and if nothing else it will extend the life of your motors.
All back together and working again. Hang on a minute, what's that car doing in the shed? That doesn't look like my GT! More on that one later...