E30 Zone

I've been doing a few searches on interior light problems, I've learned a few things but have come to a stumbling block with my problem.
The light comes on and goes off as it should on the passenger side, along with the window switches on the center console. Opening the drivers side will not put the interior light on but it will light up the window switches.
I've just removed the switch to clean it and tested the wires for power. One shows 12v+ but the other only shows 3.5v. I assume that is the one for the light, hence why it dosn't work. Where do I trace it back to, to investigate further?
Cheers, Jacko.

Did your car have an interior light delay off, when you closed the driver's door?

I dont know Brian, to be honest it hasn't worked in the 3 years i've had it. I started to investigate because of battery draining problems, if I leave it for a week it goes flat but i now use it as a daily so its not a huge problem.
How can i tell if its a delay off light?

Take off the speaker panel in the driver's footwell (one screw), take out the speaker (three screws), and prise up a plastic panel directly under the speaker, inside the pillar. The central locking relay lives below this panel, and the interior light delay relay fits right beside it on the same bracket. If there isn't one fitted, then there should be an eight(?) pin connector hanging around the area on it's wires, with nothing connected to it.
Actually, I've just thought of an easier way! What colour is the wire connected to the pin switch?
Brown/yellow, it has the timer; brown/purple, it doesn't.

Brian, its brown/yellow, just to be sure though I'm going out to have another look.

Just checked again, one is yellow/brown and the other is blue/brown.

It's brown/yellow, and brown/blue, but it looks like you have a timer!
Two choices now: either sort it, or disconnect it!
Sorting it starts with removing the timer module, and seeing if it's suffered any water damage.
To just disconnect it, there should be a spare brown/purple wire with a spade connector on it plugged into another brown/purple wire, floating around inside the pillar behind the pin switch. Pull the two brown/purples apart, pull the brown/yellow off the pin switch, and fit the brown/purple which has the right connector on, onto the pin switch.

mmmmmmmmm........ my int. lights doesnt work on either front doors just the back doors (no sign of battery going flat tho). but winder switches do light up!! so im watching this thread with interest.....
my current (no pun intended) way round it is to unlock the car, and open front and back doors on one side of the car, to see where my fags are (if thats what im looking for). or get in and switch a light on with the switch on the light. so as you can probably tell its annoying me a bit but not enuf to stir me into an investigation/fault finding activity to find out whats up with it.

i have exactly the same problem window switches light up but interior lights do not come on no mater wat position the switch is on. and been as i work shifts im getting into my car alot in the dark and cant see shit.

Brian, have just had the speaker out and it looks like the ICE/Alarm boys have been there first, it looks like a sparky's nightmare! Found two boxes, one is a normal sized looking relay with a bit of water corrosion, and the other is the size of 10 hamlet cigars, (couldn't think of anything else to compare to!) that one looks clean as a whistle. I couldn't really see the spare wire you were refering to but it was getting dark.. Also I put the tester onto various pins some of which were live and others not, didn't have a clue what i was looking for, (well at least I'm honest.) I would really like to have this working as I am trying to keep the old girl honest. I suppose the obvious answer is elimination with doner parts but not always the easiest answer. Any more suggestions welcolme Brian.
Jacko.

i love alarm fitters! theyre my favorite.

murran wrote:i love alarm fitters! theyre my favorite.

I've made references to the marital status of their parents on occasions as well!

Brianmoooore wrote:

murran wrote:i love alarm fitters! theyre my favorite.

I've made references to the marital status of their parents on occasions as well!

These two boxes should be mounted on the same semi triangular mounting plate, which is held to the car by two self tapping screws directly under the loudspeaker, on the inner sill. Remove these two screws and pull both boxes and the bracket up and out by their wires.
The smaller box is the delay unit, and it may well have failed, if has water inside of it.
You need to work out how the water got there as well. The sunroof drain tubes empty into the bottom front corner of the sills, but there should be slots in the bottom of the sills to let the water out. It is important that these are clear!
Open up the delay unit and see if it is corroded inside.

Thanks Brian I will have it out again tomorrow and have a good look. I should have mentioned that its a cab with reference to the drain holes. When I rescued the car it was filled with water inside so I reckon everything up to the tops of the cills has been wet at some point. Also I have been reading about another wire that goes to the door handle (if fitted), if that is disconnected would that cancel out the whole function?

jacko wrote:. Also I have been reading about another wire that goes to the door handle (if fitted), if that is disconnected would that cancel out the whole function?

When the delay unit is added to a car that didn't have one, the door handle switch is not normally fitted.
To get the unit to work, you have to connect the door pin switch input (Tk) to the door switch input (TG) as well.
The locking ECU doesn't take kindly to water immersion either - often results in it deadlocking all the doors and then burning out the lock motors while deadlocked! May have already been replaced, of course.

I think this might be the problem.

Are they salvagable?

looks fubar to me! lol!

had a nosey at mine..... found that unit on the triangular shaped bracket in the bottom of the drivers a-pillar no sign of water ingress in that. cant see any relay but theres a plug off that loom bout 6 inch up that looks like it would plug into a relay.......
when u press the door pin switch theres a blue relay behind the glove box that clicks that seems to do the leccy winder switches?
theres lots of wires that too seem disturbed soldered and taped up and then chopped by the nice alarm fitting chappys also appears to still have bout 6 old alarms still partly wired up......... not getting involved in that on a cold winters day tho......

jacko wrote: Are they salvagable?

I've repaired worse. The damage only looks like its across the bottom.
All the affected components will need removing and checking, the board cleaned up, and any corroded tracks replaced by 15A fusewire.

murran wrote:had a nosey at mine..... found that unit on the triangular shaped bracket in the bottom of the drivers a-pillar no sign of water ingress in that. cant see any relay but theres a plug off that loom bout 6 inch up that looks like it would plug into a relay.......
when u press the door pin switch theres a blue relay behind the glove box that clicks that seems to do the leccy winder switches?
theres lots of wires that too seem disturbed soldered and taped up and then chopped by the nice alarm fitting chappys also appears to still have bout 6 old alarms still partly wired up......... not getting involved in that on a cold winters day tho......

You don't have the delay unit, so whatever is wrong with your lights isn't in this area.
Do your lights light up with the switch in the 'always on' position?, or just not in the 'auto' position?
The pin switches are two switches in one, and, for reasons I've explained before, the interior light part of the switch is more likely to fail than the windows/roof part, although they are identical and interchangeable.

dunno if this pic helps at all bri. blanck box is im assuming the light delay control. mine is nicely rusted to the pins, tho its the least of my probs at the moment as you can see i have no central locking box lol.


all because a previous owner removed the speacker and didn't bother putting the screws back in

Brianmoooore wrote:

murran wrote:had a nosey at mine..... found that unit on the triangular shaped bracket in the bottom of the drivers a-pillar no sign of water ingress in that. cant see any relay but theres a plug off that loom bout 6 inch up that looks like it would plug into a relay.......
when u press the door pin switch theres a blue relay behind the glove box that clicks that seems to do the leccy winder switches?
theres lots of wires that too seem disturbed soldered and taped up and then chopped by the nice alarm fitting chappys also appears to still have bout 6 old alarms still partly wired up......... not getting involved in that on a cold winters day tho......

You don't have the delay unit, so whatever is wrong with your lights isn't in this area.
Do your lights light up with the switch in the 'always on' position?, or just not in the 'auto' position?
The pin switches are two switches in one, and, for reasons I've explained before, the interior light part of the switch is more likely to fail than the windows/roof part, although they are identical and interchangeable.

yeah the int. lights work on the back doors and you can switch them on manually. think your right bout it bein the pin switches themselves cus come to think of it the passenger door one works when it feels like it.
yeah tailoutcharlie that does help ive not got that relay bout got a little control unit on that white plug........
ill have a nosey at the switches see if i can clean 'em up.

tailoutcharlie wrote:dunno if this pic helps at all bri. blanck box is im assuming the light delay control. mine is nicely rusted to the pins, tho its the least of my probs at the moment as you can see i have no central locking box lol.


all because a previous owner removed the speacker and didn't bother putting the screws back in

That's the delay unit, alright, and the single pole connector just hanging out of the speaker hole is the one you pull apart and push the side with the appropriate connector on it onto the door pin switch, in place of the wire that's there now, to revert to non delay operation.
For the locking, check that there is power on the red/black wire with a bulb between this wire and the brown wire, then check the operation of the central locking motors by using wire links on the locking ECU plug, as I've detailed in other posts.
Only then try a known good ECU.

my interior lights work on the switches (normally) but never on the doors. and the window switch illumination only comes on with the passenger door.... try that one on for size oh great one.. because i sure know it has confused the crap out of me

Unscrew the single screw that holds the pin switches in, pull them out, pull off the wires, and earth each wire, one at a time. If this makes various things work, then the switches are the problem.
They wear in such a way that a small sliver of black plastic can end up between the contacts, which needs to be cut away with a craft knife.
If the lights still don't work, take out the lights themselves, check the wires are on the correct places, and that the contact arms, worked by the switch rocker, actually touch and make contact with the bulb.

Can I hyjack my thread back for a while?

Brianmoooore wrote:

jacko wrote: Are they salvagable?

I've repaired worse. The damage only looks like its across the bottom.
All the affected components will need removing and checking, the board cleaned up, and any corroded tracks replaced by 15A fusewire.

Brian i'm impressed that you can/have repaired these units, but is it viable, especially for other people, I mean it must take hours repairing these for little or no gain. What I mean is, could you fix mine or is it easier if I just buy another.

jacko wrote:Can I hyjack my thread back for a while?

Brianmoooore wrote:

jacko wrote: Are they salvagable?

I've repaired worse. The damage only looks like its across the bottom.
All the affected components will need removing and checking, the board cleaned up, and any corroded tracks replaced by 15A fusewire.

Brian i'm impressed that you can/have repaired these units, but is it viable, especially for other people, I mean it must take hours repairing these for little or no gain. What I mean is, could you fix mine or is it easier if I just buy another.

its cheaper to fix your old one
but easier to just buy a new one (new ones are 32quid iirc)

It's impossible to tell from here precisely what's wrong with it, but from what I can see from that one pic, it doesn't look too bad.
Might even just be the corrosion that's stopping it from working. Give the bottom end a scrub with water and a toothbrush, but try not to get the relay wet. That's about the only part that's going to be damaged in the short term by water, if I can remember what's in there.
IIRC, there's only one part that isn't easily replaceable, and that's a resistor array that I couldn't identify.
The E28 5 series were often fitted with an earlier version of this module, which is different inside, and has a different part number, but is directly interchangeable.

The PCB should look like this when you have cleaned it up.



all of the components are easy to replace (except the diodes located under the relay coil)

Is this the early type or the later type, smithy. I have drawings of both, but can't really tie this layout to either of them! Perhaps there's a third version?
My early type doesn't have any ICs, and it looks like there's the pads for a 8 pin DIL in the top right corner. My later type has an IC there, but I can't see the line of pads for 9 pin resistor array it has right across the middle.

61311373974

No IC on this version, just lots of resistors and steering diodes.



These pictures are from when I was building cheap copies a few years ago.

Looks like the pads for the 8 pin DIL is actually the pads for the row of resistors and diode in the top corner.
Going by the components, this looks like a similar circuit to the early version that I've traced out, but with a slightly different PCB layout.
Jacko - there's no component on this PCB worth more than a few pence individually. Apart from the relay, about a £1 in total at the most, so if you can clean the board up, and the relay is OK, it should be fixable. If the relay is scrap you might be able to find a similar one in a indicator flasher unit or similar.
if you think car electronic boards are expensive, I repaired a couple of burnt out tracks on two little identical PCB from some industrial equipment on Christmas eve. The boards were only slightly bigger than this one, and the only valuable (and possibly irreplaceable component) on it was a small PIC.
I was told that replacement boards were £150 a time!!

[quote="smithy318i"] quote]
Thats exactly the one Smithy, I'll give it a good clean this morning and try it. If it dosn't work still then I think its time for a new one.

Sorry. im a dirty thread jacker

i apologise