Has anyone experianced a problem like mine on a Gen 2? I own a 1990 T2 this car has been very reliable but a few weeks ago it started discharging the battery over night so it was flat next morning, after alot of messing i found removing the "Head" Main fuse cured the problem, now a week later when i turn the lights on it makes a funny Arcing sound and ither the ft lights dont work at all or only one comes up and there is no light.

I am thinking along the lines of a bad switch as it went bad over a few days and in the begining if i played with the switch they would work but now it seems to have got a lot worse and the ft lights dont work at all.

Has anyone got any idears or can tell me the symptoms of a bad light switch? is this what they do when they go bad?

 

hey there....

does your dash lights come on?....i had a similar problem with my tail lights.....what it is is the connector behind the switch if u pull it out u might a burnt spot on one of the pins.....if so that pin is what controls whatever lights......changing the switch might not be the problem.....u could change the switch and have the same problem.....

Damian

 

Sounds like you have two different problems

First it sounds like you have a current draw problem from a light or something being stuck on. Is you hatch closing all the way and locking on both sides or did you have any work done recently on the car? You may want to do a current draw test on the car with a Digtal Multi-meter. The car should only have a 70mA draw or less with nothing on.

#2 it sounds like your light switch plug or internal contacts are dirty. You should check this ASAP as some people have experienced switch melt down if they didn't heed this warning sign.

 

Thanks alot i will pull it apart and have a good look.

 

As many know, the light switch on the FC is absolute crap. Mine burned to a toast once....the melting fused the pins in the back of the switch so that I could no longer turn the lights on and off...I had to replace the switch and the harness.

 

The light switch on the FC is no different than any other Japanese car that is 15 years old.

The switch itself in many cases is fine. It’s the switch contacts to the plug that get aged or corroded.

This happens more often in climates that are subject to higher humidity or sub-zero temps and the condensation involved tends to corrode or glaze the contacts.

Because this is somewhat common on older Japanese and GM cars I am surprised that more people don’t check their plug at the light switches instead of calling the switch crap. Hell a simple unplug/plug back in is generally enough to fix a slighty corroded contact.

Unplug the harness, spray a little contact cleaner in there, then a light coat of WD-40, plug it back in and it is fixed. That will fix the corroded plug contacts 99% of the time and generally keep any additional corrosion away for another 10 years.

Perhaps Sunshine, you should try a little preventive maintence before calling something crap.

 

Dont hate just because I used stronger language than you would have chosen to. There are many people that will agree with me in saying that Mazda cheaped out on many of the electrical systems in the car. That is why there are so many posts on cold soldering the clock cluster, etc...

 

Here is my problem. Last week my interior gauge light just cut out for no reason. All other light works. Then I removed my interior cluster. I found that the contact on one of the pin is all burned. One wire is stripped fairly good. I cleaned it out a little bit, plugged it back in. The problem still countinue, but not too bad. It only cuts out every so often. Well last night it happened again. But this time different light. I had just gotten home from school. I turned off my lights. Turns out the parking light would stay on, it would not shut off at all. I didnt want to unplug the battery, so I ended up taking the illum fuse out. This morning when I got back in the car, different problem after I plug the fuse back in. Now my parking light refuse to go on at all. And i am suspecting that is draining battery juice in some way because my voltmeter doesn't read as storng as it did before. What do you guys think? my switch crap to bed or stll contact problem?

 

Your CPU controls all of these things. Start with it. Look for/repair any broken solder points. Wouldn't hurt to look at each of the bulb sockets to make sure that they're clean/undamaged. But start with the CPU.

ttyl,
Amur_

 

CPU does not control the lights, the light switch does

 

****. My bad. But the light switch does tie into the CPU. It does interact with the other systems that are malfunctioning on you.

Check page 15-24 of the 88 FSM.

And if you haven't done your CPUs yet, or in a long time, this is a good as excuse as any to do it (again.)

ttyl,
Amur_