Fuses, relays and flashers...
Discussion
Morning all,
I decided my Chimp wasn't chavvy enough so over the weekend it had some LEDs installed. I now have clear front and side indicators with LEDs which look smart, but flash at twenty to the dozen. I believe the simplest way to remedy this is to fit a flasher unit suited to LEDs - my questions are:
1) where is it located in the car and
2) is it a 2 pin or 3 pin relay on the Chimp?
Also, in unrelated news (because this happened before my hamfists went anywhere near the car) I've lost all interior illumination - does anyone have a fusebox diagram as I don't want to spend any more time than necessary wedged in the passenger footwell (if you were over 6 foot and about 18 stone, you'd understand why...)
I decided my Chimp wasn't chavvy enough so over the weekend it had some LEDs installed. I now have clear front and side indicators with LEDs which look smart, but flash at twenty to the dozen. I believe the simplest way to remedy this is to fit a flasher unit suited to LEDs - my questions are:
1) where is it located in the car and
2) is it a 2 pin or 3 pin relay on the Chimp?
Also, in unrelated news (because this happened before my hamfists went anywhere near the car) I've lost all interior illumination - does anyone have a fusebox diagram as I don't want to spend any more time than necessary wedged in the passenger footwell (if you were over 6 foot and about 18 stone, you'd understand why...)
-JUT- said:
Also, in unrelated news (because this happened before my hamfists went anywhere near the car) I've lost all interior illumination - does anyone have a fusebox diagram as I don't want to spend any more time than necessary wedged in the passenger footwell (if you were over 6 foot and about 18 stone, you'd understand why...)
Have you pushed the interior light button under the dash on the left of the steering wheel? It looks like the one on the right that you use for other things.
softtop said:
-JUT- said:
Also, in unrelated news (because this happened before my hamfists went anywhere near the car) I've lost all interior illumination - does anyone have a fusebox diagram as I don't want to spend any more time than necessary wedged in the passenger footwell (if you were over 6 foot and about 18 stone, you'd understand why...)
Have you pushed the interior light button under the dash on the left of the steering wheel? It looks like the one on the right that you use for other things.
...maybe... must learn not to press buttons whose purpose I don't know...
That's one problem solved then! Would still be handy to have the fusebox diagram though. Must get around to getting a copy of the bible, think I'm going to need it...
Edited by -JUT- on Monday 31st July 11:20
Flasher unit located under top of dash IIRC.
Remove dash top and there is a fuse platform with about five of six relays on the passenger side.
The flasher relay is the tallest one of them all.(black)
However reading the bible it says that the flasher speed is electronically controlled and does not vary with load like the old style bi-metal flashers. So you may have other problems with wiring.
But as with all TVR's yours could be different.
Hope this helps.
Cheers
Paul.
Remove dash top and there is a fuse platform with about five of six relays on the passenger side.
The flasher relay is the tallest one of them all.(black)
However reading the bible it says that the flasher speed is electronically controlled and does not vary with load like the old style bi-metal flashers. So you may have other problems with wiring.
But as with all TVR's yours could be different.
Hope this helps.
Cheers
Paul.
paulathome said:
...the flasher speed is electronically controlled and does not vary with load like the old style bi-metal flashers.
As Paul said, it is electronic, not bi-metallic, so it has three terminals. The hazard lights should flash at the normal rate - you're correct about why the indicators flash too quickly.
So I could get the three-pin flasher unit and it should work, but I'd have to take the dash top off to fit it? Still sounds like a bigger job than wiring load resistors in series.
Whilst we're on the topic of fuses, just noticed that a) the car has a fan override switch, b) it's been on constantly for the couple of weeks I've had the car, c) one of the fans doesn't appear to work and d) noticed the other day, but still on topic, in this weather the temperature in crawling traffic seems to exceed 100 degrees if I'm not careful.
Have flushed the cooling system (was clean and silt-free) and refilled with coolant and water wetter to no noticeable effect - I'm thinking being one fan down probably doesn't help, but should it be getting this hot even with one fan out of action? Thinking the Leven cooling kit might be in order but not sure if it is fitted already - the car seems to have every other Leven part on it so I'm guessing it might be - any way to tell?
Whilst we're on the topic of fuses, just noticed that a) the car has a fan override switch, b) it's been on constantly for the couple of weeks I've had the car, c) one of the fans doesn't appear to work and d) noticed the other day, but still on topic, in this weather the temperature in crawling traffic seems to exceed 100 degrees if I'm not careful.
Have flushed the cooling system (was clean and silt-free) and refilled with coolant and water wetter to no noticeable effect - I'm thinking being one fan down probably doesn't help, but should it be getting this hot even with one fan out of action? Thinking the Leven cooling kit might be in order but not sure if it is fitted already - the car seems to have every other Leven part on it so I'm guessing it might be - any way to tell?
-JUT- said:
Oh yeah, other question, is it worth fitting a 40 amp fuse to each fan?
If the originals haven't blown it's pointless, leave the 25A fuse in. And if they have blown it's better to find out why.
In the weather we've just experienced, being one fan down will have quite an effect.
Will have to trace that fault first and see what effect it has I guess
Are the fan fuses in the ludicrously pokey space in the passenger footwell or somewhere in the engine bay? Also, I thought they had one fuse each but the owner's manual says one for both, fuse number 3 in the fusebox? If there's only one then I'm a bit miffed as to why one fan would run and one wouldn't...
Are the fan fuses in the ludicrously pokey space in the passenger footwell or somewhere in the engine bay? Also, I thought they had one fuse each but the owner's manual says one for both, fuse number 3 in the fusebox? If there's only one then I'm a bit miffed as to why one fan would run and one wouldn't...
Yep you need both fans in the hot weather - I was stuck in a jam the other day stop start for about an hour, never quite stopped long enough to turn her off for a cool down. Both fans running flat out the whole time temp pegged at 90 Deg. Fans doing exactly what they are supposed to :-) With one fan you are for sure getting overheating sitting in traffic... I would stop if she ever reached 95 and let her cool down (cause I am a wimp and dont have the balls to let her get too hot) so 100 deg would have me going arrgghhh !
All above of course assumes you have an accurate temp guage....
All above of course assumes you have an accurate temp guage....
That was surprisingly painless - mini torch in my teeth and a bit of a fiddle, diagnosed an incredibly corroded plastic connector block on the nearside fan... bit of a clean up and it's working, hurrah! Still going to chop it off and replace it with some waterproof connectors though :-)
-JUT- said:
Sounds like a lot more work than just hooking up a bulb or load resistor in series with the indicators themselves and tucking it away inside the front bumper... Not sure I like the idea of trying to pull the dash apart...
I have all LED, front and rear and the flasher has a minimum sense of around 50watts, anything less than this and they will flash fast, as they should. If you want to do it without load resistors(will have to be in parrallel !!), you can remove a resistor in the flash unit, i can take a look as to which one. If you load up with resistors, you loose the "on-off" effect, dash off it is then !
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