Friday, July 24, 2009

Problems and Fixes in the same post!

So we hitched it up to take it down to the Car show Friday Afternoon... (Last weekend) and just before I drove off, I thought, "well, I had lights off the trailer, I should check the lights). Normally, the lights work flawlessly and I just make sure the side marker fires up and the reat work just fine... nope! All 4 side markers were dark... tail lights were dark... Right turn didn't work, and Right Brake didn't work... oh no!

Well with some fiddling around and still nothing I headed out and followed my wife in the GLI down to Tacoma with only one stop turn signal!! (In heavy traffic).
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At the show on Saturday night I had some time to fiddle with it, so I ended up tearing into the front corner where I made repairs as I thought I'd find my culprit there... didn't find anything... sadly put it back together, still not working quite right. Towed it home again with one turn signal... :(

So last night I decided to fiddle with it again. Took out the 12v battery to test with, and remounted the ground and sanded off any oxydation on the connector. Put the ground onto the frame instead of just the skin this time!

After I confirmed the lights 'Work' by running leads to each light and trying them out. Found out the ground was good still... so what was the problem? Tail light? Nope all good there... running light wire? seemed to be okay... hmmmm.

So after tearing it all apart, the lights started working, great! Now let's put it together SLOWLY, and with the lights ON, so I know when they turn off. If it wasn't the LAST screw I put back in (after re-sealing that corner for the 3rd time!!) and I had to take it back apart again!

"The Problem" was they knotted the wires at each corner, I'm sure to allow them to pe wedged in the skin so they wouldn't slip down when you had a light off... but, not thinking about it, as I screwed in the bottom wire for the light, it went right into the center of the knot and grounded out the running lights. Then, the newly bare wires touched the skin even when I took that screw and light out.

All better now! Everythng is rewired, shrink wrapped up tight and protected and working like a charm!

whew!

Here is some shots at the Car show.

on our way:
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all set up for blacktop camping :P
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Pull Ryan, Pull!!! Need some Fancherlube?
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Clockwise - Ryan, Hil, and Chris
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4 comments:

  1. mike - thanks for taking time to show ondine & i your beautiful TT. I absolutely love it! Are you a member of the Tin Can Tourists? If you're not already, you should be! Please tell me you are going to the TCT Mt. Baker Rally in September....

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  2. We were kicking the idea around about going to the Rally... but I'm not 100% if we are going to make it or not.

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  3. hahaha.. until I clicked on your name and saw the Commander I wasn't sure who "R" was... thanks Rob... hmmm... the % of chance we might go just went up a little bit. :)

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  4. cool! FYI i sent you an email (got from dion) but never heard back - did you get it. we can communicate there. I am definitely in, we just got ours road-worthy.

    if you decide to do it as well, let me know and we'll caravan. :)

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