Technical Fuse box help please

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Technical Fuse box help please

northantsabarth

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Hello all,

I'm hoping someone might be able to offer some help and guidance.

I own a '53 plate silver Stilo Abarth. Had it from 6 moths old and not really suffered any major issues.
About 2 years ago I was having intermittent battery draining issues, and after a fair amount of troubleshooting couldn't find any logical reason. What I did notice thought, was if I removed and left the battery cover off, all would be fine. So, foolishly as it now turns out, I put the battery cover into storage.
All was fine until a few weeks ago. I noticed the engine cooling fan coming on by itself a few times, draining the battery, and then about 3 weeks ago I went to start it and noticed the main-beam warning lamp and both indicator lamps on the instrument cluster were lit, although on lights were actually lit.
I did some reasearch and found alexGS's thread about water in the fuse box...!

I removed the fuse box and found it was well and truely burnt out. Low resistance due to corrosion caused by water ingress - obviously caused by my stupidity n removing the battery cover in the first place. The brown 32 pin multi-plug had melted in a couple of places due to the low restance between the fuse box pins and the connectors pins, but, not to worry.....I found a replacement and hoped all would be fine.

I fitted the new fusebox, re=connected the battery, and all was fine, I thought.
A little strange that the instrument cluster appeared to have reconfigured itself to default, so language was Italian, and none of my options were set.
No problem, I just reset them.
Went for a drive - all good.
The next day, went to go for a drive, cluster again back to default....Now I'm concerned.
Read AlexGS's thread again, and look at my old fusebox, and the new one - all are the same, except......Alex mentions 5 connectors underneath the fusebox - the 2 32-pin multipin ones, and 3 others.......NOW...........I can only find 2 other connectors, and I cannot remember if I removed a total of 4 or 5 when I took the original fuse box out.
I'm sure this isn't the cause of my problems, but would appreciate anyone being able to confirm how many connectors are under the fuse box.
I've got a manual gearbox and it's a tin-top 2 door Abarth without cruise and is standard.

I've now got further cluster problems, whereby sometimes the cluster doesn't come to life at all, and sometimes it does (but it's getting worse by the day).

The "new fusebox" was a second hand unit, but I have striped it down to make sure it's all fine, and I can find no problems with it at all.

If anyone can offer help and guidance that wouold be great.

Thanks you
Jeff
 
Hi I'm sorry if this is bad news to you but it may help if only you notice similarity or it may warn you off presuming things like i did.
unfortunatly i've recently had trouble with my engine bay fusebox getting water in where my headlamps were flashing uncontrollably and my rad fan was on permanently,i quickly unpluged my relay which runs the rad fan and disconnected the battery.
After cleaning the moisture ridden fusebox where i noticed what i thought was evidence of short circuiting,i replaced it and connected the battery to find i now had fuel cut-off and car security warnings and my parking lamps are comming on and off upon opening of the doors.
I presumed that the wet fusebox short circuit had caused some body computer issues and have since tried various different fuseboxs and body computers with key transponders unsucessfully.
I did sucessfully swap over eng-bay fuse box's from 1.6 to 1.2 with no problems.
 
Hi 411_guy,

Thanks for the reply.

I think my issue is corrosion with some of the pins on the 2 x 32 pin multiplugs underneath the fuse box. For me, with the Abarth, there is one brown and one black multiplug. I replaced one damaged pin, pin 7.

I have very odd symptoms:
Sometimes everything works as it should (not very often now)
Sometimes the clock time appears (only the clock time, nothing else working on the cluster)
Sometimes the gauges work, but no illumination or warning lamps.

When I first fitted the replacement fusebox, the only odd this was all the instrument seetings were default.
Once I reset everything I turn the car off and on about 10 times, and no problems. I drove the car for 30 minutes, no problems. Parked for 1 hr and when I went to drive again, instruments back to default.
But now, nothing on instruments. I will carry on trying to identify the issues and report back with my findings.

My car has only about 43k miles, so silly not to persue a fix for the beast.

If anyone else has any suggestions, please post.

Cheers
Jeff
 
Last edited:
My 1.2 that had this trouble has 115k miles, and I still want to fix.
I'm still trying to fix it but just bought a 47k mile one lady owner active model to keep me motoring,
It was one of the pins in my 32pin circuits that shorted,and I'll be on the case during the week and be keeping an eye on your thread and help if I can.
 
Hi 411_guy,

Thanks for the reply.

I think my issue is corrosion with some of the pins on the 2 x 32 pin multiplugs underneath the fuse box. For me, with the Abarth, there is one brown and one black multiplug. I replaced one damaged pin, pin 7.

I have very odd symptoms:
Sometimes everything works as it should (not very often now)
Sometimes the clock time appears (only the clock time, nothing else working on the cluster)
Sometimes the gauges work, but no illumination or warning lamps.

When I first fitted the replacement fusebox, the only odd this was all the instrument seetings were default.
Once I reset everything I turn the car off and on about 10 times, and no problems. I drove the car for 30 minutes, no problems. Parked for 1 hr and when I went to drive again, instruments back to default.
But now, nothing on instruments. I will carry on trying to identify the issues and report back with my findings.

My car has only about 43k miles, so silly not to persue a fix for the beast.

If anyone else has any suggestions, please post.

Cheers
Jeff
I had a similar problem with my clusters, it seemed to be worse in the cold. The lcd would stay on and maybe one light on the cluster but the dials would just freeze as would the time etc, sometimes it would come back to life and sometimes it would take days or longer. It was an intermitant problem too.
In the end I pulled out the cluster using this guide https://www.fiatforum.com/stilo-guides/96473-fitting-new-dials-cluster.html and sent it away to a compay called Cluster Repairs UK who refurbished it for about £80
Its worked beautifully ever since (the cluster not the car, the car is as quick to break as ever ;))
 
Hi Paul8977,

I've spent the day stripping, cleaning and rebuilding the fusebox, including all the relays and fuses and all of the female pins in both 32 pin multiplugs.

No change in the way the cluster behaves, so I'm now suspecting that I had 2 issues occur at the same time.

Firstly the fusebox. It had shorted due to water ingress, and I'm guessing the issues with the rad fan and headlights on half-power were the result of that.

Secondly, I'm now going to have my cluster refurbished and see if that resolves the last of my issues (well, hopefully the last of my issues).

I have the full version of MultiECUScan, so I'll hook that up tomorrow and see what fault codes or tests I can perform on the cluster.

Thanks for the response, and I'll update once the cluster comes back.

If anyone else has anything to contribute, please post.

Cheers
Jeff
 
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