After having a rebuild over Winter the car is just about ready apart from an electrical issue that I cant seem to sort!

I cant seem to get the dials to register when the engine is running (VDO , speed, rev counter, oil, water, fuel gauges) as well as the indicators to work individually - these only work when you switch the hazard switch on?

The brake lights and the front/rear lights also work fine and the dials are lit up - the rear is slightly dim on one side though?. The annoying noise that warns you if you have left your lights on is also present whenever you turn the lights on as well.

Im sure its something really simple however have yet to find it! Its a sierra loom/stalk/column etc as well.

Any ideas? I really want to get the car to Newark next week (weather permitting). Anybody know of any auto electricians round the Derby area?

Cheers

Joe

sounds like classic earthing problems
start with looking at earthing of the rear light clusters, and their individual bulbs

Corroded earth - take apart all of the connectors, clean the contacts throughly and that should sort it...

On one version of the sierra stalks there is an earth connection to one side of the stalk and a loop over to the second part.

I know from experience that if it's come off strange things happen.

Roger

Might also be worth checking that you have a live feed to the instruments?

Assuming that all your instruments have a common earth connection, that is they are linked one to the other and finally to a earth point.

Try this.

Take a wire from an earth terminal on any instrument directly to the battery negative terminal.

If your problem disappears then your fault is definitely a poor earth somewhere. Use your wire from the battery and separate any connections working back down the loom to check the earth path.

You might find this method easier than using a multimeter as that will give you a confusing reading as it will pick up all the parallel loads.

Cheers guys I will check the earths tomorrow. A number of them are bunched up and I bolted them through the chassis so will spend a bit of time on them - may be worth tacking a bolt onto the chassis to get a good earth as I'm not sure how well the bolt is working !

Right think i have cracked it!

It seems to be that a couple of the connectors had come off as per the pic below



not sure I can get them to stay on as they were originally soldered however this is definitely the problem with the dials etc as they come to life when back on. I may cut the other side and connect them separately unless there is a better way of doing it?