Today was the first time I had to use the wipers in the Panda Fantasia. They work fine, but when they start to move across the screen some funny things happen. The petrol and temp gauges jump. If I have the headlights on the little green light flickers as well as does the light that illuminates the dash.

A sperate issue is with the internal light, it won't work at all. I've tried a good bulb and checked the door connections, but no joy. It won't come one when switched on at the unit itself either. I do have a spare which I'll fit if I can't get the current one working.

Any ideas would be much appreciated because I'm stumped.

Sounds like the usual earthing problems with the wipers but Juppys interior light never worked from when I got him and I left him in with Crightons one time for a service and he came back with it working and I forgot to ask what they did.... (I'd tried a bulb but not much else)

Jim

The earthing strap is in the passengers side front wing, right? I checked it, all is well.

Hope its nothing serious steve...

oh and, just noticed your sig Jim

It's not Joe. It's just something simple that I can't pinpoint.

Something in the system must be causing a poor connection. I had a look at the Haynes manual but then my head started to hurt looking at wiring diagrams. But there does seem to be some sort of correlation between the power to the wipers and to the temp gauge... Mmmm

Jim

In addition to the earthing block behind the UK passenger side headlight (the thing like a hedgehog, where a lot of spade style connectors on black wires connect) there is another near the opposite corner of the engine bay.
AFAIK, most of the instrumentation earths and the wiper are earthed here.

To disconnect the connectors there is a small tab on the back to squeeze in as you pull - if you just pull, the connector gets damaged and doesn't fit properly again.

You need to check that the block has a clean contact to solid shiny metal, and the tags the connectors push on need to be clean and shiny too.

You might even need to replace the connectors, if they are particularly bad.

When it's cleaned up and working, dismantle it again and put some petroleum jelly on the shiny bits to slow down the oxidisation, then reassemble.




You didn't check all the electrical bits before you bought it, did you :shakehead

I did, honestly, not all at the same time though. Sure it's only a Panda, what can go wrong?

It was only sort of half complete when I bought it, it still needed a bit of spraying and some jobs like the rear wiper motor wasn't wired and so on, but it's good where it matters. I have most of the jobs done now and it's looking good.

Thanks for the above John. Something (else) to do at the weekend. I also have to service it and change the cambelt.

All sorted this evening. John, your advice was spot on as usual. The 'hedgehog' was at fault. I disconnected all the connections and cleaned it up and everything works as it should.

The courtesy light unit appears to be faulty as the spare I fitted works fine. Many thanks.

Glad it's all working as intended again.

The comment about the "petroleum jelly" on the connectors was serious, BTW.