another stupid headlight switch thread (turn signals)

[myeyesareopen]

hey fellas, ill try and keep this quick. i know headlight switch threads have been beat to siht but i haven't read a thread with my problem in it.

so i had no idea the headlight switch was even supposed to light up untll i got my "sorta parts car". i pulled the lighted switch (working) out of my 1991 gti to replace my also working (non lit) switch in my 1992 jetta gl.

that night, went out, no turn signals, either side. i figured that was quite unsafe and i would just use my hazards when i was turning, at least to give some sort of warning. no hazards either. back road'd it to the chinese food place, park (lights off) to check what was happening and with the lights off everything worked. with the lights on one of both clicks, nothing worked. figured it was a bad switch cause i haven't really driven the gti.

now i just got home, put the old switch back in and now both switches are doing the same thing.

did i blow both the switches or something? would a blown fuse cause no signals with lights on but everything working with the lights off?

i didn't touch any wires or anything anywhere, just pulled the switches out. both the backs look the same, not sure even where to start testing to see if somethings wrong since i don't seem to have done anything to disturb a connection anywhere

[bretthbmx]

Bad relay? Everything plugged in tight? I just went thru 3 stalks and 2 hazard switches, finally ended up using bits and pieces from one another, cleaned up all the gunk on all the contacts, put dielectric grease on it, put it all back together and **** works mint.

My hazard switch was missing a spring behind the one contact causing me problems along with all the gunk built up on the hazard switch and inside the stalk itself.

[myeyesareopen]

plugs are all good, contacts look fine but im going to clean them today if works slow and i get a minute. gotta start checking relays and fuses i guess.. no one else have any ideas?

[J.Knipl]

plugs are all good, contacts look fine but im going to clean them today if works slow and i get a minute. gotta start checking relays and fuses i guess.. no one else have any ideas?

Can you unplug the hazard and try again? I have some vague memory about the hazard causing problems of this sort.

[myeyesareopen]

with the hazard switch unplugged i get no turn signals no matter what,lights on or off. normal lights still work fine. plugged back in i only get signals when the lights are completely off, aka- square 1

thanks for the insight thou, i wouldn't have thought to check that

is it possible i could just have 2 bad switches? but then something must be breaking them since they both worked iirc before i started swapping them around.

i dont want to get a third if its just going to do the same thing as these two

[J.Knipl]

Weird , Ok do the instrument panel indicators blink when you signal? Headlight switch in and out?

Might just be the stalk( turn signal handle) ? Do you have a spare you can test with?

[myeyesareopen]

i can pull the stalk out of my other car to check, that'll most likely happen tomorrow thou.

anyway with the lights on - no indication of even touching the stalk, either direction or off i get no flashing led
lights off however, both directions blink and center (off) stays off which is normal

when i had removed the hazard switch, either direction had the indicator led solid green, but the signals were solid on (with the lights) and when the signals were turned off (center) the led was lit and solid but very dull

[J.Knipl]

i can pull the stalk out of my other car to check, that'll most likely happen tomorrow thou.

anyway with the lights on - no indication of even touching the stalk, either direction or off i get no flashing led
lights off however, both directions blink and center (off) stays off which is normal

when i had removed the hazard switch, either direction had the indicator led solid green, but the signals were solid on (with the lights) and when the signals were turned off (center) the led was lit and solid but very dull

I hate electrical problems ! While you're at try a different hazard switch as long as you a have a parts car to o pull from. When I was having my frustrations it turned out that it was the actual instrument panel causing the weirdness. Not saying that this is what's causing your problems but it might b something to think about while you have the steering wheel off.

Wish I could be more help but this is far as my thinking and experience takes me....

[myeyesareopen]

yea no worries, thanks for the help. anything that breaks i can fix, even if i don't know how i can figure it out eventually, except electrical stuff. electricity might as well be magic to me, i might just swap the red stripe dash into the jetta (parts cars a gti) so if thats the case then hopefully that'll fix everything.

for the time being ill check the stalk tomorrow and if not that start pulling a couple different headlight switched out of junkyards i guess..

thanks for chiming in!

[bretthbmx]

It's most likely the hazard switch. When you pulled it off, were the three contacts pushed out? Did the push back out when you pushed them in? They have springs behind them to push them back out. I was missing one on mine and it was causing problems cause the contact wasn't pressing out.

I'm telling you if you take the stalk 100% apart, clean it all, make all the copper leads nice and shiny again with a small wire brush, use some dielectric grease, put it all back together, itll work like new. Mine does.

[bretthbmx]

The instrument cluster has no effects on the turn signals working properly.

[bretthbmx]

Here's a few photos of how dirty mine was before, I don't have any after photos but it should be nice and shiny obviously.

[J.Knipl]

The instrument cluster has no effects on the turn signals working properly.

I disagree , I just can't prove my case with logic.

[myeyesareopen]

well i should be off of work tomorrow so ill pull the stalk and the switches and clean everything up nice an new and report back, i'm not sure about the hazard switch connectors but ill go check and make sure they're pushed out

[myeyesareopen]

im not sure what you mean by the spring loaded connectors, think you can point them out to me? (excuse the cell phone pictures)

[Seax_Smith]

You have some serious ground issues.

Start testing all the brown wires with a multi-meter. Check for continuity to the battery ground and then see what resistance the circuit is carrying.

Also, carefully open up a light switch and be sure all the contact points are making contact with only what they look like they should be making contact with.

[myeyesareopen]

pulled the wheel and cleaned up every connection back there, cleaned the switch connectors and dielectric greased everything before putting it back, and still, same problem. i cant seem to find a ground diagram in my Bentley but i was only skimming during work.

can anyone point me in the direction of a good list of grounds or diagrams? Also, andy good write-ups for replacing said grounds with nice fat 4 or 2 gauge wires?

[Rimstretcher9000]

Well it seems like you could have a few issues. Electricity flows, exactly like water. If you pour water into a funnel, and it doesn't come out the bottom, you know the funnel is plugged. If you tell the turn signal to come one with the switch, and it doesn't, there are only a few things that can actually cause it to not happen. Start at the switch and work your way through the relay box (which is a bastard I know... the relay box uses multiple in's and out's to achieve the outcome of your input) So... if you turn the signal on, and test at the relay if it is getting signal, then you can move on down the chain, but the relay itself might be bridged with another relay (hazard signal relay) to achieve the outcome. If no signal then the switch itself could be intermittent. So I would keep testing between the switch and the next possible link in your electrical chain to find out what is going on. Also, going to a ridiculous ground size won't make a difference. Just make sure that each section that is grounded has a nice clean ground. No paint, no goup, no crusties or crappies. Keep that theory in mind and you will be glad that you didn't do the dash swap...

[myeyesareopen]

aha well thank you for your insight, i have actually just narrowed it down to being a definite ground issue, i just have to find out where. i also found the body ground diagram in the Bentley after some thorough combing and it only lists 11 grounds in 9 spots,(page 12 in the current flow diagram section) are there anymore i'm missing that should also be addressed?

if i tug on the hazard switch wires i can make the e-brake light flicker, so on tomorrows agenda is pulling the entire dash to make the harness totally accessible, finding where its grounding out, soldering, heat shrinking, and re-wiring whatever needs attention, and re-doing all the other body grounds.

on a separate note i know when people shave their bays and delete unnecessary stuff they trim the harness down by deleting things they don't need, what would some of this "extra" stuff consist of? how would i delete it without compromising how the car itself runs or works altogether? i just don't really understand how to delete sensors and the like cause i was under the impression they are all more or less fairly important

i'd just like to simplify whatever i can incase i have to go back in or decide to do a swap or a tear down down the road.

[Seax_Smith]

Sounds like you have a CE2 Car. you with have a 'ground bridge' (for lack of a better term) right next to your fuse relay panel clipped into the A-pillar. Its a folded up piece od steel with a dozen or so tabs to accept female spade connectors. start there.

The piece is pressure fit into place. you'll have to look at it and wiggle it around to figur uot how it pops out. Where the wires go on it doesn't matter. it ias just a ground block for a whole bunch of stuff. Clean up the bridge itself and where it mounts to the a-pillar. Then check each wire with a multi meter before you reattatch it. Most of the dash grounds find their way to this ground bridge. You'll also have 1 0r 2 wires in the same general area that aer a direct body ground. CHECK THEM.

What I did when I hade to rebuild my forward harnesses was to run a 10 gauge from the battery ground to that ground bridge. The 1 or 2 wires which had a direct body ground were rerouted to the ground stud on the back of the battery tray.

Generally speaking, you are going to be looking at all the brown wires in your car, some Brown/Black and some Brown/white. Strait brown is just ground where ever you can find it. Brown?black is an "indexed ground"- needs to be grounded to a specific locations, like teh head grounds. The Brown/Whites, like the dome light&door switch wires, are weird ground situations.

So browns can go anywhere. Brown Blacks have to go where they are grounded , stock location. Brown whites need to stay where they are as well and have some weirdness with them, like supplying ground only sometimes.

Get a 100' roll of brown high strand count automotive wire and some good tin or nickle-plated copper terminal ends and when you are repairing the grounds be sure to solder the ground wire onto teh terminal end after you crimp the wire in place. It's a little extra work now which will save you a lot of extra work later.

Pay close attention to the big ground wire going out of the back of the fuse/relay panal. Don't hesitate to replace it if it is carrying any resistance at all.

Also, most of the switch plugs, ect carry Junior timer terminal ends. Just be sure to measure BEFORE you order and remember that JT ends are measured for the diameter of the insulation and not the copper wire itself.

Last, Stabilant 22 or Stabilant 22A is your friend, an expensive friend, but well worth the price.

[myeyesareopen]

ahh man cool bro, that is exactly what i needed to a T. Thank you, i'm gunna go use my multimeter until i burn out the battery now

[Seax_Smith]

You are going to be doing the same things at each light as well. Very few Mark II's have a single isolated ground issue.

Usually it is a big one compounded by many much smaller ones, all adding up to a huge one.

(Think: a bunch of half shotty connections, then a wire breaks or comes loose from its connector and 1 or more (sub)system(s) fail.

[myeyesareopen]

from april 27th to december 6th i have been running around with this problem still, no signals at night, ect.

turns out i had single filament bulbs in the front signals where double filament bulbs are required, what an *******

i spent 120 dollars on a misdiagnosis that nothing ended up being done on and ran around for over 7 months in three point ticket territory neglecting to look for a 5 dollar and 49 cent fix

so please, a little respect, for I am Ian, lord of the idiots.

[Hombre3000]

from april 27th to december 6th i have been running around with this problem still, no signals at night, ect.

turns out i had single filament bulbs in the front signals where double filament bulbs are required, what an *******

i spent 120 dollars on a misdiagnosis that nothing ended up being done on and ran around for over 7 months in three point ticket territory neglecting to look for a 5 dollar and 49 cent fix

so please, a little respect, for I am Ian, lord of the idiots.

I never would have thought! Then again I had similar issues with my brake lights - they acted really weird until I realized that the bulbs were all wrong.

Glad to hear you figured it out!

[myeyesareopen]

oh yea i never would have found it had someone else not asked me to pull one out and check on a hunch.

but thank you
and i hope its a lesson to everyone else out there with similar problems, it always is something stupid, you just have to open your eyes

[VDub2625]

from april 27th to december 6th i have been running around with this problem still, no signals at night, ect.

turns out i had single filament bulbs in the front signals where double filament bulbs are required, what an *******

i spent 120 dollars on a misdiagnosis that nothing ended up being done on and ran around for over 7 months in three point ticket territory neglecting to look for a 5 dollar and 49 cent fix

so please, a little respect, for I am Ian, lord of the idiots.

Not your fault. people on here jump immediately to the worst possible case scenario without asking you to do a little basic testing. They are the idiots, not you.

No one around here seems to do any ACTUAL diagnosis... electrical problem in your VW? it's a ground! of course! never mind that the light circuit and turn signal circuit cross paths at the front signals, so it's likely them...

Glad you sorted it out, but learn next time to not just throw parts at a problem!