day 2 of ownership and help needed!!

[pancholi]

i was going to write about the most amazing car i bought home yesterday..
a 4.2 1997 chatter cam cerbera!!!
with sports exhaust, the car could not sound any better..
today out of the blue the following occured.

wipers would not stop
full beam
hazards on
divers door would not open
boot would not open..

reading the threads could this be an earthing problem?
any suggestions please?

[spongy]

Welcome bud
Check boot for water leak if she has been out in the rain?may have got into the fuse box on right hand side of boot.

[sweeper]

ECU is dry?

Sorry to hear that your first post wasn't the expected one... but with the help of the PH folk here it will be sorted me thinks.

[pancholi]

boot fuses are dry...
where is the ecu?
cheers

[sweeper]

You have to remove the cover in the passenger footwell. The silver box is the ECU. Unscrew the cover to see if there is damp inside or something corroded.

[C3BER]

Search big fuse as if it's cracked it will cause all of the above and more. A simple cheap fix and a good one for your first knuckle scraper.

[BCA]

All of that is linked to one fuse on many Cerberas. It'll be linked to the cigarette lighter - I'll see if I can find the thread...

http://www.pistonheads.com/gassing/topic.asp?h=0&a... Here you go.

[pancholi]

wow,
it all started when i tried to strighten the cig lighter!!!
i will check fuse.
i also want to make sure that the cig lighter is properly connected up at the back ie no corrosion etc. how do i remove all that leather covered paneling..cheers

[JensenA]

My bets on BCA being right. You can't remove the leather panelling (easily). Either take the radio out, and feel from there, or reach in from behind the dash.
You'll soon realise why many of us Cerb owners keep trained Octupus's as pets.

[aubrey9160]

Had the same on mine it was the fuse for the cig lighter. If you want to check the connections use a small mirror to have a look around the back of the lighter or take out stereo I wouldnt start removing leather if I was you.
Fuse 7 I think but it will tell you in your hand book.

[pancholi]

i am a dentist so got lots of small mirrors and instruments!!
would i use a standard radio removal keys to remove radio?
i will check fuse first though?
aslo while at it will check to see if all other fuses/ecu's are dry

[FUBAR]

pancholi said:

i will check fuse first though?

Obviously check them all. When I fitted a wondrous ebay Chinese lighter years back, giving the same symptoms as you, it not only took out fuse 7, but 3 or 4 others too

[RUSSELLM]

BCA said:

All of that is linked to one fuse on many Cerberas. It'll be linked to the cigarette lighter - I'll see if I can find the thread...

http://www.pistonheads.com/gassing/topic.asp?h=0&a... Here you go.

Exactly the same happened on mine.

Playing about with sat navs, meant the lighters got mixed up between the Cerb & the Works Transit van.

Whilst the car suffered the above problems due to the fuse being knackered, having been raped by the Ford's lighter.

The Cerbera's lighter wasn't quite so forgiving on a day trip in the van. On the M5, I foolishly pushed the lighter in... as you do... and about a minute later it propelled itself out. Like an Exocet missile, it proceeded to head straight towards the crotch of the middle passenger, who in a blind panic, tried to scramble, at first over the passenger on the other side, then over my side. Whilst I fended him off & tried to peer out of the screen, the threat of a can of Tango to douse his smouldering midriff was enough to calm him down.

I always thought the Cerbera would kill me, but in a million years I would never have predicted it was going to do it while driving a completely separate vehicle.

[pancholi]

sorry ..is there a specific style of radio removal key that i need?
as i will have to make good the loose cig lighter i have at the moment
cheers

[touching cloth]

@Russ

[FeelTheNoise]

pancholi said:

sorry ..is there a specific style of radio removal key that i need?
as i will have to make good the loose cig lighter i have at the moment
cheers

Well I expect you will be removing the radio from cage - obviously depends what radio you have, different makes = different keys. I doubt you can reach around to push all the metal tabs back into the cage to slide the whole thing out. Were the originals Pioneer? That's what mine came with.

Phil

[Gazzab]

pancholi said:

sorry ..is there a specific style of radio removal key that i need?
as i will have to make good the loose cig lighter i have at the moment
cheers

It depends on the make of radio.

You can sometimes remove the Cerb radio without any key as you can pull the stereo and cage out as one with some side on, round the bottom and side to side action. The cage is normally held in place by 3 or 4 bent bits of metal (on the cage).

[FUBAR]

Gazzab said:

3 or 4 bent bits of metal.

My kind of technical terminology

[grahamn]

touching cloth said:

@Russ

Have another, almost spat me lunch all over the screen.

[schimg]

Mine did exactly the same when I put the cigar lighter from my chimaera in the cerb...messed about with all of the electrics .wpiers on hazards doors that wouldn';t open .

.found a blown fuse in the boot replaced it all worked fine again...