Dodgy electrics

[andrewsxt]

Driving home from work today and for a few seconds the lights, wipers, heater and indicators went off, engine kept running which is a good job as i was pulling into heavy traffic at the time

any ideas

Andy

[Gareth]

Eeep! Could be an intermittent break in the wiring, or it might be a dody connection at the fuses - these are known to cause problems, but usually of the total failure kind.

[rayofleamington]

Sounds rather like a fuse - my first Minor liked to that in heavy traffic a couple of times a year. I used to open the bonnet and wiggle the fuses but fortunately the traffic was heavy enough that nobody had a chance to get around me so I never lost my place in the queue

[bigginger]

Sounds *exactly* like the fuses - they become loose in the holders. AFAIK, the engine will continue to run with no fuses in the box. Clean up the springy contacts in the fuse box, and maybe try gently bending them to fit the fuse more tightly. Oh, and congrats - it's happened to just about every Mog owner ever...

[Alec]

Hello Andy,

fuses and the fuse holder can be troublesome but the lights are not fused. (neither is the ignition circuit, or fuel pump) So for the lights to fail sounds odd.

Alec.

[andrewsxt]

A sort of initiation process then, that`s good to know, quite comforting really
re the lights, can`t say for sure to be honest Alec, just had total leccy faliure and maybe chucked the lights into my list as an assumption i didn`t notice if the speedo light was on or not due to the monsoon like conditions and lack of wipers.

Andy

[Pyoor_Kate]

Aye, the fusebox is definately a source of bizzare electrical problems. I'd recommend taking it out, having marked which cables go where, cleaning all the connectors on it thoroughly - get some electrical contact cleaner from [maplin or some other electrical shop] as well, and have a really good go at it.

Once it's clean, bend the fuse locating lugs back to make them grip the fuse a bit tighter and make sure the spades going on are clean. Put it back and while you're there, smear some lovely vaseline on the connectors to stop them from corroding again.

Of course, then you start finding that the lucar connectors scattered around your car are a cause of problems too.

*bloomin' prince of darkness*

[Multiphonikks]

I had exactly that problem once on the M3... It was fuses

[bigginger]

Told you everyone had had it...

[Onne]

Count me in!