Ducato wiring query.

Nekarsulm

Hi all, we have an Autoroller 5 based on a 2000 Ducato 2.8 chassis.
The rear left tail lights have all stopped working. No tail right, no brake light and no indicator light. Also the little marker lights on that side have also stopped working.
I suppose it sounds like an earth problem? The light cluster is in a pretty flimsy plastic skirt.
Bucketing down rain again, so not crawling under it tonight, but what are people's opinions?

Bad ground. Run a temporary new one and see if they come back to life.

Nekarsulm

Not so simple...
The wiring to each rear light cluster enters the chassis rail behind the rear wheel. I give it a pull and it started coming.
Some dirty rat has chewed through the wires up near the level of the front seat.
For the life of me, I cannot see where the loom enters the chassis at the front.
Anyone any ideas ?
Thanks.

Disconnect the other end at the fusebox and run a new loom. If you get 5 or 7 core flex at the auto store it'll save you having to loom it yourself..

Could be worse I've the diesel tank off, angle grinding tin worm all day. Might drive to the welder with the tank lift vessel in a lucozade bottle cos the tank's got a leak (on top) and we need access behind it for welding.

Nekarsulm

Thanks Sir Liam. Good idea.
Or could just bring the existing cable over to the other side and tap into that cluster, and run a new wire from front left indicator to rear left cluster. Or would that over load the fuses already serving the right hand side? If anything went wrong you would lose all lights.

Is your tank plastic or steel?

Rust in places on mine as well, a day with a wire brush and body shutz is called for in the very near future.

It's steel I invented a tank desludgifier which consisted of a rag taped to a tent rod on a drill...works ok..surprisingly clean for a 22yo tank. The leak I reckon is a missing gasket on the sender.
I'm not taking any prisoners I've 5mm of shutz to get through so spent the day with one of these.



Flappy disc tomorrow, welder the day after, gallon of Vactan, pot of seam sealer, a gallon shutz and it'll be good for another 50K miles.

Too late now but you could tape the new loom to the old to pull it through the chassis. It doesn't need to be inside the chassis rails anyways you can clip it underneath or run it through the interior.
[Edit]You can probably link the lights unless your ECU is finiky (if it indicates your bulbs are not working then it's difficult).
In any case there's no danger of overloading the fuses they're usually 10A and your stop lights and reverse lights are the largest loads at 4A per pair each.

You'll probably want a ratcheting tool.


and a bag of lucar crimps for the terminations.



The blue ones are for 1.5mm² cable the red ones are for 0.75mm² cable.
You can get 100 for €5 in an electrical wholesaler or 8 for €4 in Halfords.

Do not use this tool


These are rubbish and ought to be defenestrated on sight. Your crimps will fail sooner or later if you do.

The cable only needs to be 0.75mm² per core but I'd use 1.5mm² because it's mechanically stronger.

Nekarsulm

Everything works on the RHS, front and rear. On the LHS the front indicators work, both at the headlight and the small repeater on the side of the front wing. I might have look in the local scrappy tomorrow and see if they have a ducato with the engine out of the way, see if i see anything to help,therwise I'll have to get cracking and get them working somehow. Heading off Thursday, and don't need a run in with the PSNI !
Currently the right rear lights are fed from a multi cable coming out of that chassis rail, and the left rear lights from another multi cable from the left chassis rail. Each side powers the number plate bulb on each respective side. No connection across the rear.

No ECU and no tell-tail for the light bulbs. Last of the mechanical Bosch (?) injector pump models.

Hope you are wearing VERY good eye protection with those brushes in a 4.5 inch grinder. ...

I edited the post after rereading the symptoms. You can probably link them but you'll need to take the indicator from the front. You'll still need to disconnect the chewed loom from the fusebox so it doesn't short in the wet. Actually easier replace the loom tbh.

I don't have enough room on my head for all the PPE :rolleyes:...googles, ear muffs, head torch, dust mask....ear plugs tomorrow anna big light

Nekarsulm

Nekarsulm wrote: »

No ECU and no tell-tail for the light bulbs. Last of the mechanical Bosch (?) injector pump models.

Happy days. Yurp it'll be grand!
I bloomin' hate rust but rather it to a multiplexed vehicle any day.

Nekarsulm

Had a wire from one of those wheels cone in through one of the tiny ventilation holes in a pair of goggles. Got the skin at the side of my eye. Bloody scary. If you wear glasses its hard to get a real with goggles.