Wiring Issue on a Felicia

[chef1]

hi all

just spent a very entertaining evening trying to track down a dead-short on the felly...in fact, it was almost a terminal-dead short as smoke started pouring from the fusebox.... the fuse protecting the left sidelights/dash warning light decided to put up a spirited fight and not doing anything as wimpy as blowing...it melted instead.

at first i thought water had gathered in the fusebox itself, as the wiper/wash fuse popped as well.

it hadn't. - turns out the loom that runs out the rear of the body into the tailgate had perished and cracked....big gaping gaps in the insulation, but hidden inside the rubber carrier thingamjig, making it a bugger to track down.

just something to be aware of if anybody ever has the same problem, with hindsight it's glaringly obvious the movement of opening and closing the tailgate is going to take it's toll on the wiring.

cheers

[Red Studio]

Had the wiring break there twice now - the feed and return from the hi-level brake light. The rubber shroud is so knackered now it's not doing much but the ends of it are acting as a grommet keeping the wiring off the bodywork so I've left it in place.

Don't think there's any way round it as you say - it's the flexing that does it I suppose. Sounds like it was the number plate lights or wiper on yours then?

[adurer]

I believe a new grommet might be handy.

[chef1]

Had the wiring break there twice now - the feed and return from the hi-level brake light. The rubber shroud is so knackered now it's not doing much but the ends of it are acting as a grommet keeping the wiring off the bodywork so I've left it in place.

Don't think there's any way round it as you say - it's the flexing that does it I suppose. Sounds like it was the number plate lights or wiper on yours then?

- it was the two main wires to the wiper-motor (black and grey) plus the live to the near-side tail-light, and to add to the general hilarity of it all, the earth-wire was also exposed.... the reason it was such a bugger to trace was in this case the grommet was in almost-perfect shape...it was only pure luck i thought of looking INSIDE it to see the mess of exposed wire.

anyway, the important thing was once i traced the fault, it was an easy fix, thank goodness

cheers

[Vexxer]

Noticed that most of my engine loom had dried out and cracked near the multi connectors. They seem to be sheilded in crappy plastic. I'll just check these points you mentioned, thanks for posting!

[TeflonTom]

On the pickup the tailgate loom is modular so it can be unplugged from the the main wiring harness, I can't remember if they are or not on the hatchback/estate... Might be worth a look.

[djaychela]

There is definitely a modular element to the rear wiring, but I can't remember how far forward it goes, I -think- that the whole rear end unplugs from the fuse box, but it was 2007 last time I took one apart (when I did the LHD conversion on my banjulmobile) and while I remember thinking "that's made things easier", I can't remember what made things easier.

[adurer]

[TeflonTom]

That's it ^^ That's jogged my memory, I'm also pretty certain you can't get those looms from skoda any more either, the pickup ones definitely are not available any more, but at least it might be possible to find q good loom from a scrapper.

[uma1998]

my boot light switch wire has gone in this some where as makes boot light come on and stay on and set my alarm off at stupid a clock till i traced it down to be wire cracked and touching earth luckly its not a live wire think i better fit my donner car loom in there as thats sound

[Red Studio]

I replaced the boot light with the earlier type with a switch built in because it kept coming on. I don't think there was a wiring fault just an over sensitive switch at the tailgate.