Re: Lights out (long reply)

[Steinbru@VNET.IBM.COM]

Curious, this hint fascinates me.  My uncle once had a Buick that when
new, needed the radio on to get the turn signals to work.  Yeah, ground
loops, but aren't they strange?  He got it fixed.

The dash light thing has happened to me a few times, and sometimes is
seems related to a weak contact on one of the license bulbs, but the
other is burning?  Sometimes both are lit and it still does it.
'86 5ktq.  This is starting to get to me.

Right now there is no bulb in the glove compartment, but occasionally
the trick will work anyway if I shut the engine off and restart --weird.
Sometimes this only works if I turn the dash light rheostat quite low.

Lately, a few times while doing this, I could hear a faint whine which
I thought was coming from the radio (on at the time), but it did not
seem to vary with radio volume control setting.  Now, once so far,
I have heard the whine while the radio was OFF, coming from the general
area of center console, radio/HVAC control area --wow, haunted Audi??

I have also occasionally noticed a momentary change (hi/lo/hi/lo
pulsing) while under acceleration (even on some turns, no pattern).
I looked at the wiring diagram and see the shared ground for some of
these bulbs, so started poking around the parts and checking ground
connections under the hood.

Now the really weird part:
While a helper watched the lights, moving underhood ground connections
made no difference in the light intensity, BUT as I closed the hood,
the lights daylight dash lights and HVAC indicator brightened!  Whoa!
As I fiddled around looking for a clue, I removed the underhood light
and the lights dimmed, put it back and they brightened again, take it
out and hood position did not matter, put in and symptoms resumed.
Unfortunately, with the bulb out, the dash lights are dim when head-
lights are off and extinguished when they are on.  So close and yet
so far from a tempfix...

Well, next is to clean up the license light contacts, replace the glove
box lamp, and --wait:  "Who Ya' gonna call?"  Is Ghost Busters in the
new phone book??  Anybody want to add their clues?  --Gary

--REFERENCE--------------------------------------------------------------------
Date: Thu, 10 Apr 1997 00:54:29 -0400 (EDT)
Subject: Re: Lights out

>I've a question for you electrically inclined gurus.  The lights in the CQ
>dash have all gone out at once.
                               .
One or both of your license plate lamps is blown.  The Workaround until
you replace the bulbs is to start the car, open the glovebox, Turn on the
Headlights and then close the glovebox.
Later!
Eric Fletcher S.O.C.