Wire Festoon/Fuse panel no-start

[Vinzanto]

'84 Westy 1.9

I was recently trying to track down why my rear heater wasn't working and after unscrewing the fuse panel and digging around for a bit...
No power anywhere.
All dash, starting components, fuel pump, camper equipment--out.

Today, I found two obvious unhooked wires. One brown wire with a number 8 tag on it and was severely crumbling, down to bare threads. (As you will see in photos I wrapped with white electric tape)
Also, there is a break-out split red wire; one side running off into a sheeth with two other wires (blue and red with stripe)
and a short unplugged male end with a yellow housing.

Where are their homes?
The brown one looks as if it is a female end with a broken off male end that was possibly soldered somewhere on the panel (speculating)

Here are the photos:

[thatvwbusguy]

Brown wires should be grounds unless they were added on by a previous owner / mechanic. There shouldn't be any grounds connected to the fuse block.

The broken off male end is one of the upper connectors on the rear of the fuse block.

The only circuits that don't have the double connectors like that are fuse #3, #4 and #6. Have a look at the back of the fuse block and it should be pretty obvious where that one came from.

New fuse blocks are still readily available. If you have tabs breaking off yours, you could probably use one. http://airheadparts.com/vintage-vw-parts/vanagon-f...11937505-m

Which circuit (fuse #) is the red wire with the yellow housing connected to?
_________________
Jay Brown
'85 Zetec Westfalia
Newmarket, NH


If you want others to be happy, practice compassion.
If you want to be happy, practice compassion.

[Vinzanto]

Thanks for the reply nobody wanted to touch this issue haha!

I turned to the Bentley and gave reading the electrical diagrams
a shot and found out there are no 8 gauge brown wires and that specific wire should be red.

So it turned out that the "brown" wire is actually a Red wire but it is so old and crumbled and faded that it looks brown.

I'm pretty sure I know where the solder broke on the panel but don't have one for repair so did this instead.

I pulled out the broken off male piece with some needlenose and just winged it and plugged it into the extra (there is no obvious female mate, not sure why its there) red wire/yellow connector and that seemed to do the trick!

[thatvwbusguy]

Cool, glad you sorted it out. I kinda figured it was a red wire that had gotten hot and turned brown, but you never know what could have happened under the dash in the 29 years since your van left the factory.

As long as you are 100% sure that the connection is secure, you are probably all set. If it seems like it might detach again, you really need to address it as soon as possible. An 8AWG wire can carry a lot of current and can do massive amounts of damage under the dash without a lot of warning if it works its way loose again.
_________________
Jay Brown
'85 Zetec Westfalia
Newmarket, NH


If you want others to be happy, practice compassion.
If you want to be happy, practice compassion.