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dr8track
Samba Member
Joined: July 18, 2005
Posts: 502
Location: Seattle area
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 Posted: Mon May 17, 2021 12:50 am Post subject: Re: 74 Westfalia Electrical Gremlin Nightmare - Help! |
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| Wildthings wrote: |
| dr8track wrote: |
New discovery... even w/o running or key on, put it in R and the front parking lights come on along w the backup lights. With engine running and headlights on I have the same old problem.
I'm going to pull the battery out tomorrow and open up the back of the tail light housing and take a closer look. |
This indicates that something in the lighting circuit is getting power when it should not be. Does removing the plug from the headlight switch (have #1 and #2 fuses in place) fix eliminate the symptoms? |
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Thanks for the ideas. I was trying to remove some "wires to nowhere " from PO's and noticed the headlight pull knob is very loose. I felt around behind it and was going to take it out and tighten it but I was afraid I wouldn't be able to blindly get it hooked back up.
How exactly is it supposed to be held in the dashboard? I couldn't feel any threaded ring on back to tighten.
So you are saying to pull the power to the switch and see what happens? Which do I pull?
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1974 Westfalia Deluxe Campmobiles - Lake Stevens, WA |
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Wildthings
Samba Member
Joined: March 13, 2005
Posts: 50352
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| Posted: Mon May 17, 2021 3:33 am Post subject: Re: 74 Westfalia Electrical Gremlin Nightmare - Help! |
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| #30 should have power the whole time. If removing the wire from #30 stops the problem from happening then at least part of whatever is wrong might well be in the headlight switch. |
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dr8track
Samba Member
Joined: July 18, 2005
Posts: 502
Location: Seattle area
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| Posted: Mon May 17, 2021 4:03 pm Post subject: Re: 74 Westfalia Electrical Gremlin Nightmare - Help! |
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| Jrh5r wrote: |
| I recently had a similar issue. Spent days trying to resolve it going through wires. Finally took off the turn signal lenses and removed one bulb at a time. The front turn signal bulb was shorting out between the two tabs, feeding power back through the harness. Try removing a bulb at a time and see if that resolves the issue. |
Mystery solved!! And the winning solution comes from Jrh5r! Using your advice I set out to pull one buld at a time and see if it eliminated the problem. Since I already had the lens off on the rear passenger side I decided to start with the backup light. Pulled it, tested everything.... SUCCESS! The very first try solved everything. Put a new bulb in the socket and everything is good to go.
You have no idea how close I came to rewiring everything. I had purchased nearly $90 in wiring to do the job. That's all going back. Thank you to everyone and thank you, thank you, thank you Jrh5r! If you're ever in the NW I owe you a few tall cool ones. 
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Jrh5r
Samba Member
Joined: January 08, 2021
Posts: 33
Location: East coast
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| Posted: Fri May 21, 2021 1:31 pm Post subject: Re: 74 Westfalia Electrical Gremlin Nightmare - SOLVED!!! |
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| Man, I am so glad to hear that! I had just rewired my bus fuse box per the wiring diagrams to the tee and triple checked it. When things were acting odd, I remembered my dads beetle and the bulb issue. You really have to use the exact bulbs specified or it’ll do odd things. I was already in the middle of tracing back wiring and trying to source a new signal switch. Pulled and jiggled the front bulbs and I had narrowed the issue down. Now I’ll never forget. Glad I could help you, because I was this close to saying screw it after this entire resto. Hopefully this thread will help others! If you make your way to Charleston, let me know. We will grab a beer. Cheers! |
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dr8track
Samba Member
Joined: July 18, 2005
Posts: 502
Location: Seattle area
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| Posted: Fri May 21, 2021 5:19 pm Post subject: Re: 74 Westfalia Electrical Gremlin Nightmare - SOLVED!!! |
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| Jrh5r wrote: |
| Man, I am so glad to hear that! I had just rewired my bus fuse box per the wiring diagrams to the tee and triple checked it. When things were acting odd, I remembered my dads beetle and the bulb issue. You really have to use the exact bulbs specified or it’ll do odd things. I was already in the middle of tracing back wiring and trying to source a new signal switch. Pulled and jiggled the front bulbs and I had narrowed the issue down. Now I’ll never forget. Glad I could help you, because I was this close to saying screw it after this entire resto. Hopefully this thread will help others! If you make your way to Charleston, let me know. We will grab a beer. Cheers! |
Most definitely! And thanks again! It's great to have this community as such a great resource for all of us.
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