Maxi electric woes

[theorganist]

I am intending to take my Maxi which has been off the road since 1997 for an MOT in the next week or two. Unfortunately it has a problem with its electrics at the moment and not knowing anything about car electrics I was wondering if anyone on here may have suggestions?!

 

The problem is this:

 

The horn does not work

The headlights/tailights do not come one although if I pull the stalk towards me I CAN flash the headlamps

The indicators do not work

The hazard lights do not work

When pressing the brake pedal the nearside rear indicator lights up.

 

I am going to change the rear nearside light unit this afternoon as I do have a spare but the rest of the problems seem quite strange. If the hazard lights worked I would assume the problem was with the colum stalk.

 

The previous owner told me that once he had a similar problem and after a bit once the car had warmed up everything worked, I think he called it a dry joint?! I did have a similar problem with my old Maestro where the wipers did not work until you sat in the car for about ten minutes, although I later found that by wriggling the relay they started working!!

 

Any suggestions gratefully received.

 

Pete.

[mattblack]

Rear light problem will 99.9% be a bad earth.

 

Do the things that don't work share a fuse? Check/clean all the conections on the fuse box. Check the conections on the back of the ignition switch as well. In fact, go through all the conections you can find, It won't hurt and could save you trouble later.

 

I might have a Maxi manual kicking about if it's any good to you?

[theorganist]

Hi Matt,

 

Thanks for your reply. They do not share the same fuse, am planning to go through all the connections I can find this afternoon.

 

Thanks for the kind offer of a manual but I have three already.

 

Pete.

[Des]

That could be as simple as wriggling the fuses while the lights / hazards are turned on, or it could be worth cleaning every electrical connection and terminal possible now, rather than spend every weekend hereafter chasing random problems, Earths deserve affection, where copper / brass meets steel bodywork, dissimilar metals + flow of electrons = carnage, with damp, crud and road salt acting as a multiplier. Clean them up preferably by scraping, or if with sandpaper then as fine a grade as poss to preserve lots of contact area, fibreglass cleaning pens are good news, and an aerosol of switch cleaner is useful, especially for switches, regular use is what keeps them healthy and some spray and exercise is good loving for them, hopefully prevent contacts arcing / heating up and burning out in the future. Horn units often fail from lack of use, can respond to a light battering while someones holding down the button. Lucas stuff was good, gets slated a lot in a bad workman blames his tools kind of a way, but I've seen plenty of 50 + year old stuff still working fine.

[theorganist]

Thanks Des, off to tackle it now!

 

Pete.