help leaks!
 

i just got hit on the right side of my car the other day and i noticed i was low on coolant, so i put some in and now its leaking. Also when i put up the hood i hear a weird ticking noise and when i try to start it the gage cluster lights don't come on.

Likely you busted the coolant overflow tank which is located right infront of the passenger side front wheel inner fender liner and behind the area where the second oil cooler is located on teh R1/R2 models.

The dash issue is likely an electrical issue related to the accident you had. Probalby some wires grounding out.

could be the tank, or if it hit the frontish at all could be radiator or hoses, as for the ticking sounds like you need a valve adjustment lol just kidding, you would have to be a bit more descriptive than ticking if you want help on here, and for the dash lights, start simple check fuses and then start doing voltage drop tests on power side to narrow down your problem.

thanks, but electrical is not my area of expertise. how do you administer a voltage drop tests.

i hear ticking can be an exhaust leak.
perhaps when you crashed there was enough movement/flex in the front chassis to damage a gasket on your downpipe or exhaust somewhere, creating an exhaust leak. Just a guess. good luck

well i would start by checking the available voltage.
1. take a digital multimeter and put it on the dc volts function,
2. take the black lead an put it to ground, take the red lead and probe the back of connectors that control your guage lights.

It should read about 12 volts if not a little more. Then if you do that on the ground side and you still see somewhere around 12 volts you know you have either a bad ground or an open on the ground side.

Voltage will not drop across the bulbs unless there is a complete circuit, so if there is a split ground wire you will see 12 volts all the way up to the end of the open wire, but as soon as you touch the open wire to ground you will see the reading go to 0 volts because all 12 volts are being dropped across the load (bulbs).

But if you dont have 12 volts up to the bulb then you know there is something wrong with the power side of the circuit.

So then you check for voltage drops across your wires, if you measured twelve volts on the ground side of the buld you only need to do this on the ground side, if there was not 12 volts at the bulb then you only need to do this to the power side.
1. Leave you multimeter on the dc volts function
2. Instead of putting the black lead onto a good ground you are going to probe the back of a connector
3. Then take your red lead and probe the same wire on the next connector in line
4. Look at your meter it should read less than .02 of a volt, if it reads anything more than you know that you have high resistance between your test leads and you need to inspect the wire between your leads.
If it says OL, OLF, or 1 (varies depending on brand of meter) then you have an open in between your test leads and you need to inspect the wires.

So you check from the fuse to the first connector and you get less than .02 then from that connector to the next one in the series and you get OLF then you know its between the first and second connector, you know that from fuse to connector one is good, so you split the plastic around the wire between connector 1 and 2 and find that wire is split in two then solder in a new piece and if it still doesnt work then you continue to go through the whole circuit, untill you get all of the opens or high resistance fixed and the circuit should be working properly

So how much are these meters, well you can go to sears and get one for like 50 bucks that will do everything you will need it to do. But start simple check fuses and the bulbs in the back of the cluster, voltage testing can be very stressful and time consuming. If you were a little closer i would help but that is a bit of a drive from ohio lol.

Also it will be almost necessary to have a wiring diagram which i can probably get for you if you dont have access to one