Wiring MADNESS

 ....  When wiring you need to do just one particular circuit at a time and check that op, before moving on to the next one. Should there be a problem you only have those few connections to check...I get the feeling you took it all apart then rewired everything before checking individual circuits. If I had this speedster I would disconnect all circuits that you did and start all over again....sorry but that is the right approach or you'll spend countless hours chasing your tail.  BTW some, of what you mentioned leans to ground issues )

Having wired two from the ground up, I can swear Alan is correct......   Its a complete do over.....    One circuit at a time is the correct procedure....

Thanks Doc/Leon. I’ll take your suggestion and start to unconnected and reconnect one-by-one, playing close attention to all my ground wires. 

I noticed that I listed the bulbs as bright v. dim when I should have said “single filament burn” and “double filament burn”. 

Just to confirm...with my headlights on, all rear lights should be on with a single filament burn (“dim”) and should only burn with double filament (“bright”) when the brake/blinkers are engaged, correct?

YES that's right.  When I removed wiring harness from donor VW for mine - I used masking tape to id each wire.  When I pulled it thru body grommets I ended up with a big ball of masking tape- LOL.  Gotta hate wiring and the wispy clouds of acidic smoke when you short out something.

Congratulations on the car! 

That’s a beautiful car! 

You were given the best advice, hook up each circuit individually and test.  I built my own wiring harness and wired my car, if I can answer any specific questions feel free to ask!  

James 

Had to look up foam conned.  I would not do often because it puts a lot of water on the car, but once a year would be good.  

I powerwash everything with that cannon. Deck, driveway, garage, house, my windows.  Lol. But the coupe is not as water tight as I thought as when I opened the door I found the foot wells a bit damp. With the ceramic coating the frequency of deep foam washing should now be minimized. 

SO...I disconnected the front headlight wire harness and turn signals, double checked all connections and ground wires, stripped the wire ends to ensure no loose strands were touching, steel wooled the me terminal pins on my headlight wire harness, used my compressor to blow out any contaminates from the compound polish that may have found their way into the female connectors, hooked everything back up and did a test fire. 

Headlights STILL come on without pulling my headlight knob (not a bad thing, but more of a curious thing). Drivers flasher...nada. Passenger flashers...on, but no blink. I swapped the bulbs and they are both good. 

Q: Is my next step, before going to the back, to buy new turn signal relays?

Actually Marty, I have one to use on my power washer and I use it a few times a year.  It allows you to essentially soak the whole car but is is the FOAM MOSTLY that is on it and then you use your wash mitt to wipe the whole car down, it seems to be a bit easier on the paint...(at least if you swallow their promotion) But it is easier and the mitt slips on the car. 

And the most fun is you get to celebrate Christmas in July..  

On a side note about the headlights, before this wiring MADNESS, if I had my headlights on, I would have to turn them off otherwise they would stay on even if the key was out f the ignition. So, the headlight issue is minor to me. 

Again, thanks for the replies and any assistance/feedback ya’ll send my way!

Power washing with foam cannon is very easy and if you use a long wash brush...GENTLE one,  you can do your garage doors etc Unfortunately, brushing, rubbing is still needed most times to clean your stuff... Touchless is a fantasy    

The only way to do a true touchless wash is to have a good application of wax/ceramic coating, a foam cannon, a good garden nozzle/power washer with the correct spray nozzle and then to use a quality blower (yeah, they make a blower for auto detailers) today it off. The only thing that ever touches the car is water, soap and air. 

Speaking about water, soap and air IAM-RAY, do you think it’s a relay issue?  Lol

IaM-Ray posted:

Power washing with foam cannon is very easy and if you use a long wash brush...GENTLE one,  you can do your garage doors etc Unfortunately, brushing, rubbing is still needed most times to clean your stuff... Touchless is a fantasy    

Yeah that looks like fun actually.  Cleans the driveway at the same time:-)

Only thing I can say is that I would look at the wiring circuit by circuit to find out what I did and I would make my diagram per circuit so that I can trouble shoot the circuit at a later date... You should develop a pattern with this. 

Then maybe you will find a stray connection that makes it loop. 

Example, you have a circuit which is running inside lights like dash or dome light... it is one loop and the switch is essentially controlling it.  Now if you take Power off this to run an additional light and simply ground it anywhere on the car the whole circuit will or could be made to go on all the time... you lost the ability to use the switch. 

In this illustration the other wire (2 wires) must also be fed to the next light you want on the circuit to be controlled by the switch.. 

Simple illustration of the problem with everything is ON...  

IaM-Ray posted:

Power washing with foam cannon is very easy and if you use a long wash brush...GENTLE one,  you can do your garage doors etc Unfortunately, brushing, rubbing is still needed most times to clean your stuff... Touchless is a fantasy    

I had the CERAMIC PRO 9H coating done and wash/blow dry is a cake walk. I have one of those super soft mits and use a neutral pH soap as per the directions....after soaking the car and soap with hand mit, I rinse and blow dry water off. A couple of final wipes with chamois and I'm done....usually less than 20 minutes and everything comes off. Car looks awesome and the depth of paint is awesome.....lasts a whole few hours of course as the black shows all dirt/dust. So I embrace the short term and enjoy the ride

Marty Grzynkowicz posted:

IaM-Ray posted:

Power washing with foam cannon is very easy and if you use a long wash brush...GENTLE one,  you can do your garage doors etc Unfortunately, brushing, rubbing is still needed most times to clean your stuff... Touchless is a fantasy    

Yeah that looks like fun actually.  Cleans the driveway at the same time:-)

It is kind of fun, and whenever you are foaming at the mouth you can let agression out without harming anyone  

Thus is not a relay issue. This is failure to follow sound advice. Unplug every wire from the light sockets. Connect one circut. Test. If it doesn't work right. Stop. Rewire. Check. If it doesnt work repeat until that circut is correct.

Do this for each circut. Do ONE at a time. Test. After you do two circuts... Check both circuts you just wired. Move through the rest of the circuts. 

If you want, unplug the relay and plug it in last.

Doing this any other way will just yeild the same outcome you have right now.

5 of us have told you this. 

I hear what you’re saying TRP. And I’ve done exactly what was suggested, four times. There are only two wires on my turn signal bulb base and only one way for the 3-prong head lamp assembly to plug together.  With the two wires on my turn signal assembly, you only have two options (A or B) when connecting it to a two screw bulb base.

When option A didn’t work, I tried option B. When option B didn’t work, I undid the connection and moved to the other turn signal. Again, option A not option B worked. 

My next step was to repeat these exact same steps (unwire/rewire until I found a fix). Neither option A nor B have worked for the rear either. 

Dont get me wrong, I’ve tested everything as much as one can. I’m not saying 5 people are wrong. Hell, I wish they were right!  But I’ve followed the advice from these sages with no luck. That’s why I mentioned the relay. 

Ill figure it out. 

As far as the headlights go, they should be on a relay and have a good size wire to handle the load and if you want H4 bulbs you will need that.  Someone posted the wiring diagram in the past somewhere. 

Are you sure the relay is wired right? You have 12v, 12v switched, and ground. I wonder if you have constant and switched reversed? 

12v switched should come from the light switch. 

12v constant is hot from the FUSED link from the battery.

87 should go to the headlights. 

Al - correct me here...

I hate wiring!

TRP...not sure. I’m about to check. I didn’t touch the relay when I stripped the car of the lights   

I’ll check

Oh... Humm... Okay...  Are you sure your tails are grounded properly? Sounds like you're pushing 12v constant through the entire circut. The ground wire on the tail light housing or the license plate housing are common problems. I would remove the tail light housings and the license plate housing completely (like you did when you did the Binford 9000 Ceramic coating). Then remove the front blinker housings and their ground. Like you said, the headlights are dead simple. Check their ground. 

This screams 'ground' issue.

You should be able to get one circut working and then walk it back from there.

Sean,

Are you still using your LEDs? 

Stan...nope. Gave up on the LED until I get this issue resolved. 

I thought I was doing no harm. Label every wire, label every component. Don’t touch anything unless it’s gonna be labeled. Reverse the steps, put everything back as it was...enjoy the ride. 

Im gonna follow TRP’s last suggestion and see what happens. 

Does it matter that all of the grounds are not connected to the metal frame? They are connect to the screws holding the bulb bases to the FG shell. That’s how it came from JPS. 

Yes

Let me clarify, the grounds for all of the beehives are grounded using the screws from the bulb base to the FG shell. There are ground wires that are connect d to the metal frame...but not the ones from the beehives. 

Install a ground bar on the rear...

Fiberglass-bodied vehicles need a separate grounding system with a ground wire returning from most every component back to the negative post of the battery.

Let me do some tracing

Yeah, almost nobody does that. You can test of your ground is good with a meter or test-light.

The turn-signals not flashing doesn't surprise me. I think you've got some wires crossed up in the back, and the turn-signal circuit only flashes if the back bulb is wired and operational. If the front is wired to the circuit, but the back is not (or if the bulb is bad), the front light won't flash.

I've got no idea how your bee-hives were wired originally, but generally, the turn signal would be on the outside, and the tail-lights (and brake-lights) would be inside. If you've got 1157s on all four lights back there, the brake lights would also come on while the turn-signal flashed-- but if a pair of them are 1156s, then those are the turn-signals, and I'd put them on the outside.

I'd start with the taillights (no brakes, no turn signals). Those would be one filament of the 1157s. Once you have that figured out, then apply the brakes and see what wires get powered (a meter or test-light would be best for all this). I'd put those wires on the other side of the 1157s you just used for the taillights. Process of elimination says the other sockets and wires are turn-signals.

Good luck.

I thought “Welcome to the Madness” was just a cool phrase you guys were using for badges and shirts. I didn’t realize you guys meant it literally!

I’ve traced all found wires for the bulb bases.  They do trace back terminate to the frame or a metal ground bar. Our fear of Murphy’s Law, I don’t want to dive too deep into areas that I didn’t touch, loosen, disconnect or breathe on. My wife said “you go down that rabbit hole and you’ll jack something else up”. 

Im gonna continue to trace, retrace and triple trace these wires down. 

I sure do appreciate EVERYONES comments and replies. Misery loves company. 

As suggested, I would disconnect everything that you had previously disconnected.  Then choose  something simple, like the headlights.  Reconnect only the headlights (make sure they are grounded) and try to get them working correctly.  After that move on to another single circuit or device, and so forth.  

This way you do not introduce an issue from another circuit or device that may cause a problem.  Simply focus on one item at a time until you have it working correctly.  

More than likely the issue is with something that you have disconnected/reconnected.  I would not assume a bad relay or other issue unless you have recently disconnected it.  You should be able to reconnect and get it to working like it did prior to disconnecting.   Also, don’t try to change anything until you get it back to working the way it was before.  

James 

Sean, diagnosing car wiring problems remotely is a lot like doing brain surgery over the internet.

And the more people typing suggestions, the more likely you are to end up with a frontal lobotomy you didn't really want.

So, I'm reluctant to jump in here and add to the confusion. But what the hey, at the SOC we thrive on chaos. We love making simple problems complicated.

Our Speedsters (and replica coupes) are wired pretty simply. There aren't too many things that would make the headlights come on with the headlight switch turned off.

There is one such thing. But bear with me, the explanation is kind of nerdy.

You'll notice that brother Ted (TRP) kindly posted a pretty picture of a headlight relay. Many of our cars don't come with these (and old VW's didn't either) so we have to add them later to make the lights work better.

But ah, there is another kind of relay connected to the headlights that almost all of our cars have (and so did old VWs). It works a little differently than the one in Ted's picture, and has a few more connections. It's sometimes called a 'flip-flop' relay. It flips to turn on your low beams and flops to turn on the high beams. You make it go flip or flop by grounding one of its terminals - which is usually connected to a button on the end of your turn signal stalk. Click once, you get high beams. Click again, you get low beams. Flip flop flip flop. (I told you this was going to get nerdy, but we're almost done.)

The thing is, this flip-flop relay has one other trick up its sleeve. If you hold that button on your turn signal stalk down when your light switch is off, it will flash your high beams for as long as you hold down the button. What that button does is connect the terminal on the flip-flop relay to ground, completeing the necessary circuit.

Curiously, the problems with your tail lights and brake lights and turn signals all point to some sort of grounding issue. (We say 'issue' when we don't really know what the hell is going on and are just guessing.)

Soooo... if your grounds have gotten seriously screwed up, things that should be grounded aren't and it's possible that other things that shouldn't be grounded are. Which could conceivably be what's turning on your headlights.

I kind of like this pseudo theory for why your headlights are on when they shouldn't be and I'm going to just float it out there to further add to the overall confusion.

It's what we do.

Thanks James...I finally got the 4 rear beehives to light with the same consistent brightness and I got the brake lights to work (thanks Ted/Stan/Ray/Doc). The blinkers still aren’t blinking.

I’ll undo everything and start with the front driver side blinkers first thing in the AM. 

I’ll provide pics of the process so hopefully someone can chime in and catch an error. 

Mitch...my high beam switch is of the floor switch variety. Does that change anything?

I will take pics (for my records) of how I have the rear wired cause as of now the rear running lights and brakes are the only thing I was able to solve. 

Headlights coming on without being turned on and the turn signals not blinking are the only other outstanding issues. 

You guys are truly gentlemen and scholars 

One Stripe posted:

 

Mitch...my high beam switch is of the floor switch variety. Does that change anything?

Maybe. I've never used one, but don't think you can use a floor switch to 'flash to pass'. Do you have another switch somewhere for flashing the high beams?

No sir

If your headlights are on whenever the key is on, can you still switch between high beams and low using the floor switch?