hi

just wondered if any1 can help me. i have a 96 bravo 1.6sx. wen driving with full beam on they cut out. subsequently the main and full beam do not work along with the heater and the front wipers.

any suggestions or help would be greatly received!

thanks

dan

danbravo2006 said:

hi

just wondered if any1 can help me. i have a 96 bravo 1.6sx. wen driving with full beam on they cut out. subsequently the main and full beam do not work along with the heater and the front wipers.

any suggestions or help would be greatly received!

thanks

dan

Click to expand...

Check all fuses and relays in the car and in the engine bay. Check no wires have been snagged behind the plastic cowl around the steering wheel, however i bet its the window wiper/indicator stalk. It'll need replacing as its a common fault but check the rest 1st, as these stalks aint cheap as they are all one unit.

do u know where abouts the relays are so that i can check them? would the stalks problem be connected 2 the heater not working also though?

thanks

dan

Relays are behind the glovebox, it unscrews and pulls out easily Fuses are to the bottom right of the steering wheel, there's a long list in the manual of which one does what. I agree that stalk problems are a possibility, there's a few of a similar age popping up with this problem.

also sounds like a short circuit behind or inside the fusebox could be to blame (due to water leaking onto it usually), but i'd try stalk assembly first.

Hi,

I think I have a similiar if not the same problem.

It did occur last week for the first time. I have Bravo 1,6 SX of 3/1997.

I was driving with dimmed heatlight and put full beam on. When I put the switch back to dimmed heatlights, the full beam went out (as it should) and I was left in the dark: no dimmed heatlights, no backlights. I quickly put the switch back to "full beam", which came on without backlights. So I had to drive with full beam and I had to put fog backlights on (which worked).

The strange thing is, when I tested lights today, backlights and dimmed heatlights worked again. Put when I switched to heatlights and back to dimmed lights, the same thing happend again.

I then put ignition off and on, dimmed lights and backlights came back again...

Strange...

Questions:

Are these electronic or mechanical relays which do the switching? I don´t hear any clicking... Where do I find the relay in question? How can I test it?

Thxs,
Zardo

its often an internal fault in the switch in the stalk assembly (the thing you use to turn lights on)

the relays are all electromagnetic switches.

Re: electical problem - what about the airbag?

Thank you. You're right... I just checked circuit diagrams of fuses. There are two different fuses for the dipped headlights, so I can't be the fuses. When searching for this problem on the I-Net, I found some other people which had exactly the same problem. It always was a defective stalk assembly.

I've heard than when one changes the stalk assembly, one would have to take out the steering wheel and airbag. Subsequently, the air-bag has to be "reprogrammed" in order to function again - is this a myth or is it true? Why would that be so?

Can the defective part in the stalk assembly be changed (what is it actually that breaks down, a spring? a contact?) or is a new stalk assembly mandatory?

thx,
Zardo

before removing the airbag you must disconnect the battery and wait 15mins, then remove the fuse for the airbag. it is then isolated and safe to remove. once the new stalk assembly is fitted replace the airbag (remember to reconnect yellow wire on back of it) and only once everything is back together should you replace the airbag fuse and then reconnect the batery. that will preventr the airbag light from illuminating permanently. although i'll be surprised if your airbag light isnt on already, they usually are, i pulled mine out because fiat cant fix the problem, my previous bravo was the same, and so is my girlfriends mk2 punto. good old airbags.

the stalk assembly fault seems to be related to wear and tear on the internal connections, if you get a multimeter you can test the internal circuits, and you will find that several of them are directly connected once the failure occurs. i've never disassembled the stalk assembly to find out what causes it, but they only cost £5 at a scrapyard so its not worth repairing.

what about changing connections?

In "dipped beam" mode, the parking light still works in my case... one could imagine connecting the dipped beam in parallel to the parking lights and put a bigger fuse in which feeds it all. Anyone tried this?

Zardo

no reason why it would be a problem. i did it on my escort when i had a wiring problem and never bothered changing the fuse. it worked fine.

I finally managed to solve my dipped beam problem.

It actually was technically rather easy to do, but it wasn't so simple to understand the circuit diagram. It took me hours to figure it out. This is how I did it:

1. I cut the wire which supplys 12 V switching current of the dipped beam relais about as far away as possible of the relais (5-6 cm would be enough). Isolate the wire on the side now pending freely, it is of no use anymore (do not isolate the side of the connector).

2. I cut the wire which comes out of pin 10 of connector E. Connector E is locate above the fuse array, it's the one to the right, directly above fuse F4. Pin 10 is the second-left pin of the lower line of pins of connector E, the wire supplies current for the illumination of Fiat Bravo back sign plate.

3. I build a Y-cable using some old wire I had, connecting one end of my wire to the not isolated wire of the relais connector (12 V supply voltage) and the other end to the wire which had been cut of connector E pin 10 and also rebuild the connection between the two ends of the wire of pin E. I used standard wire clamps for isolation.
So the dipped-beam relais now gets 12 V from the pin of connector E taken from the voltage for the lamp in the back sign plate, and the back sign lamp still gets its voltage, too. Every time the back plate gets current, the relais will get triggerd and the dipped beam will glow, too.

4. I now switched on lights using the switch of the stalk unit. Parking lights and dipped beam lights brighly glow as they should, independent if I put them to position one "parking light" or position two "dipped beam / main beam light". If in full beam mode, there is now some additional light by the dipped beam lights which will no longer be automatically switched off - but as one only puts on full beam when there is no car in sight this additional light won't disturb anybody. It's actually a nice feature for those fast and furious night racers among us;-)

Zardo

hi.

i replaced my stalks a while ago and now have the same problem with the wiper, main beam and heater not working. what are the chances that the problem will happen twice in a few months with different stalks, or is there a major problem????

dan

i'd try replacing the stalk assembly again and keep your fingers crossed it was just coincidence.

the last ones i got were from a scrap yard, how much does the stalk assembly cost from fiat brand new (if they do them)?

no idea, but it'll be expensive and just as faulty, and as the bravo is discontinued it'll take a week to arrive.

just take the chance with another £5 scrapyard part, its easy and cheap.