Technical Panda 141a Brake lights problem

[artemus]

Panda 141a Selecta 1991
Hallo folks,
When driving in daylight without lights, on applying the brakes the green dash warning light comes on, and the parking lights (inside the headlamps) come on. I can't drive with lights after dark as the brake lights are barely brighter than the tail-lights. Effectively no brake lights.
I found that both filaments in the double filament bulbs are getting current with no brakes applied. I have checked the bulbs for intermittent filaments flopping about I have checked and cleaned the rear earth point I may have missed something so I'll have to do that again. I'd be grateful for any suggestions.
Cheers
Art

 

[varesecrazy]

does sound like an EARTH \ wiring issue.

are the "Hedgehogs" o.k...??

 

[portland_bill]

If you've checked the earth wires from the lamp, the bulb holders in the lamp are probably making poor connections. Very fiddly to clean the holders inside, and the contacts, without losing the springiness of them. Good luck.

 

[P1NKY]

I had a strange problem where one or more of the headlights would go out when I put the indicators on. dragonMan advised me to clean all of the hedgehogs and that fixed the problem and brightened the headlights

 

[artemus]

Well, after another three days of hair-tearing frustration, after cleaning every contact and earth point once more, tracing everything back to earth, confirming continuity, examining cables minutely for cracked insulation and taping up at the least sign of damage, I finally found the culprit. I decided to as a matter of course to replace all bulbs one by one, whether they looked blown or not. I replaced the dual filament in the right hand rear pod, and Aaaaaargh! Everything worked normally again!
Lesson learned. It was an invisible internal fault. I'll first try changing the bulbs methodically one at a time next time.
Thanks to everyone for the quick replies and suggestions. It's good to know there are supportive folks like you on hand to help out.

 

[panda1408]

In a twin filament bulb it is not impossible for one of the filaments to break and then make a connection with the other and give problems like you had, as one circuit will back feed the other. Perhaps not exactly what happened here as you said the filaments were intact.

 

[kolza]

In a twin filament bulb it is not impossible for one of the filaments to break and then make a connection with the other and give problems like you had, as one circuit will back feed the other. Perhaps not exactly what happened here as you said the filaments were intact.

:yeahthat: like in someone's Landy few years back, making it stop lights-less car.

Artemus, ok you've spend some time tracking down the fault, but at least now the 99% of electric connections and cables is check and cleaned and will keep working for next few decades.

 

[Most Easterly Pandas]

Yay, glad you've managed to sort it in the end

 

[Max Laadvermogen]

So happy to have found this thread. My car had excactly the same problem after changing all the bulbs. Turned out I plugged in some wrong ones.
Guess this thread saved me three days of trying to find the problem. Next time Artemus is over here in Amsterdam, I'll buy him a few beers.

 

[lukmek]

I have changed the rear brake bulb with some good LED and not had a problem since

 

[lukmek]

https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/272070580937

 

[lukmek]

White ones

https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/131132385373