Ground short???? long

[Mihnea Cotet]

Listers,


I seem to be in front of a new problem with my euro coupe quattro (CGT body
with quattro drivetrain and NA engine)...
Last summer I had an electrical issue where the radiator fan, windscreen
wipers, heater blower motor and rear window defrost won't work....After
troubleshooting it appeared to be a short in the big wire that goes from the
battery to the fuse box....replaced it and everything worked fine for a bout
8k miles...
Now this morning, it seems that the Audi Gods have figured they should give
me some extra electrical work...
First, no more windscreen wipers....shut the engine down, restarted and they
worked fine again....till 5 hours later where they won't work again....no
success shutting the engine down, they simply won't work!!!
A little later, as I was waiting for a scrapyard to open and I was smoking a
cigarette (I know I should give it up, but my wife and I decided as of
January first we would give smoking up....good decision!) I tried to
activate the heater blower to dissipate the smoke...
Huh? Doesn't work either!!! Dammit! misa says (like jarjarbinks would)...no
rear window defrost either....then a light bulb suddenly lights up!!!
Another short?????Dammit, I had just solved it!!!!
Went with the DMM and ohm-tested the + and - battery
terminals....nothing....then switched on to the "beep" short-finding
function...."beeeeeeeeeeeeeep" between the + and - terminals....niiiiice
misa says!!! :-)
I checked the cables I had replaced this summer and everything seemed
ok...alternator wires???
There's a slight short in the + cable going from the alt to the fusebox and
this cable shows a 74 Ohm resistance between the alternator connection and
the battery + terminal....
So tomorrow (or this week-end) I'll be replacing the BIG wire connecting the
alternator to the fusebox....Do you guys think I should also replace the
starter cables while I'm at this dirty task??? I thought the alternator
cable would fail one day or another if the battery cables had alreday done
so, but now I'm seriously wondering if the starter cables aren't the next on
the list....

Any BTDTs anyone? This looks like a weird problem and I've never had such a
problem with the CGT I had previously owned (though I have had melted lights
switches with ordinary 55/65W H1/H4 bulbs...) and either of the Audi owners
I know have had such a BIG electrical failure yet.....


As always, TIA for your answers that are always a pleasure to read even
though my car is still making trouble...:-(


Regards,


Mihnea from Belgium  -  with no winscreen wipers, rear window defrozer nor
heater blower...:-(

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