How NOT to diagnose city light wiring (LONG)- ->
07-29-2005, 12:40 PM
#1
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Thread Starter
How NOT to diagnose city light wiring (LONG)- ->
OK...
I installed a new set of e-codes. In a constant quest to be different (yes, I actually <b>like</b> staggered wheel offsets), I decided to trash the BTDT city light wiring, and try MarkP's alternative.
I get the drivers side in and working with a little tweaking to the wiring..
Passenger side..not so lucky. Fortunately, I flooded Marks Inbox with pleas for help, and he came through with three new schematics of the wiring. So I print them out and proceed to study the wiring. But I am no electrical engineer... Wait! I know an electrical engineer!!! I call BoneStockS4 and tell him my problem, in one breathe. Now he has a Masters in this ****...once he gets going, I know I am going to learn something new.. I convince him to skip the wings and beer I owe him for a previous problem he helped with and that he should come to my house and stand in my driveway over a hot engine bay and try to fix this.
Before the conversation ends, we agree on the following:
1) It should be easy...
2) There are two wires that we both think should be swapped, an if we did that..it would be easy,
3) We're probably need beer,
4) since this was going to be easy, we'd work on his new boost gauge, so he should stop and get some vacuum hose on the way over.
Now things start going bad.
I call him just before I start pulling the left housing out. He has 45 minutes to make a 10 minute trip, which leaves him 35 minutes to locate and buy the vacuum hose. He blows that and gets to the auto parts store as they lock the registers..
He arrives. We decide to err on the side of caution and check all the existing connections in both housings (that's a lot of connections mind you). Swap relays from left side to right. Plug left housing into right harness...you name it.
We checked EVERYTHING!! except those two wires we agreed fours hours earlier, were the culprit.
Let's see..we checked the voltage at the battery, then at the headlight plugs. We swapped bulbs, we checked continuity of everything and by about midnight I looked at him and said..."hmm..wonder if it could be those two wires?"
He says, as only an engineer could say... "...Definate possibility..." thanks....
A little more testing, a few more Oreo Double Stuffs and we decide to swap those two wires. My job was to get the pins to release from the plug so I can swap the ends...I used a small screwdriver jammed in the plug to release the clips..but they didn't release. Instead I broke the screwdriver tip off in the socket. OK..I can fix this so I go at with a pair of needle nose pliers for about twenty minutes and coax the broken tip out.
I'm getting tired and break my normal MO of ultra ****, and decide to cut the wires and splice them together in the proper order. Just as I am about to cut both wires together..(you know it's a cardinal sin to cut two wires at the same time...ever) He looks in the car and yells that the car has been on all that time..while I was jabbing away with the screw driver and the pliers.
His only words after that... "..hhmm, Good thing Darwin was looking the other way while we were doing that".
Well electrocution and fire avoided I get the wires spliced and don't you know that was the problem. We spent four hours pondering Mark's wiring schematics only to find that the two wires we suspected were the problem, but were too smart to check first, were indeed the problem.
If anyone needs help with wiring of the city lights... well, never mind.
thanks for reading.
I installed a new set of e-codes. In a constant quest to be different (yes, I actually <b>like</b> staggered wheel offsets), I decided to trash the BTDT city light wiring, and try MarkP's alternative.
I get the drivers side in and working with a little tweaking to the wiring..
Passenger side..not so lucky. Fortunately, I flooded Marks Inbox with pleas for help, and he came through with three new schematics of the wiring. So I print them out and proceed to study the wiring. But I am no electrical engineer... Wait! I know an electrical engineer!!! I call BoneStockS4 and tell him my problem, in one breathe. Now he has a Masters in this ****...once he gets going, I know I am going to learn something new.. I convince him to skip the wings and beer I owe him for a previous problem he helped with and that he should come to my house and stand in my driveway over a hot engine bay and try to fix this.
Before the conversation ends, we agree on the following:
1) It should be easy...
2) There are two wires that we both think should be swapped, an if we did that..it would be easy,
3) We're probably need beer,
4) since this was going to be easy, we'd work on his new boost gauge, so he should stop and get some vacuum hose on the way over.
Now things start going bad.
I call him just before I start pulling the left housing out. He has 45 minutes to make a 10 minute trip, which leaves him 35 minutes to locate and buy the vacuum hose. He blows that and gets to the auto parts store as they lock the registers..
He arrives. We decide to err on the side of caution and check all the existing connections in both housings (that's a lot of connections mind you). Swap relays from left side to right. Plug left housing into right harness...you name it.
We checked EVERYTHING!! except those two wires we agreed fours hours earlier, were the culprit.
Let's see..we checked the voltage at the battery, then at the headlight plugs. We swapped bulbs, we checked continuity of everything and by about midnight I looked at him and said..."hmm..wonder if it could be those two wires?"
He says, as only an engineer could say... "...Definate possibility..." thanks....
A little more testing, a few more Oreo Double Stuffs and we decide to swap those two wires. My job was to get the pins to release from the plug so I can swap the ends...I used a small screwdriver jammed in the plug to release the clips..but they didn't release. Instead I broke the screwdriver tip off in the socket. OK..I can fix this so I go at with a pair of needle nose pliers for about twenty minutes and coax the broken tip out.
I'm getting tired and break my normal MO of ultra ****, and decide to cut the wires and splice them together in the proper order. Just as I am about to cut both wires together..(you know it's a cardinal sin to cut two wires at the same time...ever) He looks in the car and yells that the car has been on all that time..while I was jabbing away with the screw driver and the pliers.
His only words after that... "..hhmm, Good thing Darwin was looking the other way while we were doing that".
Well electrocution and fire avoided I get the wires spliced and don't you know that was the problem. We spent four hours pondering Mark's wiring schematics only to find that the two wires we suspected were the problem, but were too smart to check first, were indeed the problem.
If anyone needs help with wiring of the city lights... well, never mind.
thanks for reading.
07-29-2005, 01:21 PM
#3
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i feel your pain. i'm sure it'll be the same with my boost leak. KISS but:
no one ever said an EE can wire stuff.
i'm not sure what bonestock's background is but i just draw pictures all day and write code.
it doesn't mean i can wire a lightswitch, it doesn't mean that i can't. in my case it partially means i can tell you how fast an electron and its counterpart move through a block of silicon-germanium.
i'm not sure what bonestock's background is but i just draw pictures all day and write code.
it doesn't mean i can wire a lightswitch, it doesn't mean that i can't. in my case it partially means i can tell you how fast an electron and its counterpart move through a block of silicon-germanium.
07-29-2005, 03:37 PM
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Sorry, this is just too good not to bring back, - How to be an idiot and install an AWE boost gauge
<ul><li><a href="https://forums.audiworld.com/s4/msgs/1979928.phtml">Funny stuff</a></li></ul>
