Anyone else experienced the headlights switching themselves off for a second or two whilst on the move?

Wife tells me this has happened a couple of times, I had a quick check of the fuse box under the bonnet last night, can't see anything a miss, she did hear relay click when they came back on, I guess that's under the steering wheel area?

some pandas develop a fault in the indicator mechanism, easy fix under warranty, or you can try yourself:

https://www.fiatforum.com/panda/208585-panda-lights-flashing-off.html

https://www.fiatforum.com/panda/206241-panda-light-stalk.html

That's what happened with mine. I got the indicator stalk replaced under the third year warranty...

Thanks guy's, I was about to say that I think it's got something to do with the stalk, messing about with it last night and found that it happens whilst operating the indicators.

I'm going to have a proper look at the weekend, are there contacts within the stalk? (thinking of the twist action to turn the lights on) that are at fault? if so I guess you can't get to them??

If the problem is at the end of the wires/connection block/contact pins then I'll have a chance of fixing that, I can solder etc.

Any tips on where the bad connection is exactly?

Have a look in here and the origional folder that I couldn't transfer all the pic's from here.

It should help you work out the stalks etc and how they work, come appart, and should be fixable possibly by cleaning up the contacts

Jon.

Most Easterly Pandas said:

Have a look in here and the origional folder that I couldn't transfer all the pic's from here.

It should help you work out the stalks etc and how they work, come appart, and should be fixable possibly by cleaning up the contacts

Jon.

Click to expand...

https://www.fiatforum.com/gallery/showphoto.php?photo=48575

Thanks, so it looks like a 'base' unit underneath the steering wheel contains all the conductive tracks for the headlights & indicators, is this the area you found to be dirty?

I've only ever had to remove the stalks on one car in the past, don't remember seeing anything like that.

I'm now guessing that rotating the stalk for the headlights is actually pushing down a plastic rod that makes contact with that tracking, I'm I right??

earthman said:

I'm now guessing that rotating the stalk for the headlights is actually pushing down a plastic rod that makes contact with that tracking, I'm I right??

Click to expand...

Correct.

I'm not sure on what bit may be dirty, as I had to remove the unit for investigative reasons into why the horn had stopped working (clock spring it turned out to be), and decided to take lots of pic's for refrence (like I seem to with most jobs on the car's now ).

Jon.

Ended up spending hours today doing this job, most frustrating trying to get to/release those clips holding the airbag.

The next most awkward part is trying to put back the stalks in their case, took me and the wife a fair few attempts, how on earth could you do that on your own Jon?

Well it's all back on the car, tested a few times and all seems to be OK, still have to give it time to see if it's fixed for good, there did seem to be too much grease on those tracks, cleaned & re lubed with a small amount of clean grease.

earthman said:

Ended up spending hours today doing this job, most frustrating trying to get to/release those clips holding the airbag.

The next most awkward part is trying to put back the stalks in their case, took me and the wife a fair few attempts, how on earth could you do that on your own Jon?

Click to expand...

Brute force, and alot of swearing on both accounts

Glad you got there in the end and that so far, the problems seems to be resolved. Makes me feel a whole lot better that taking ours appart and taking pic's came to the use of someone

Most Easterly Pandas said:

Brute force, and alot of swearing on both accounts

Glad you got there in the end and that so far, the problems seems to be resolved. Makes me feel a whole lot better that taking ours appart and taking pic's came to the use of someone

Click to expand...

Yes, your pictures were very useful, used them in conjunction with the CD workshop manual, of course that don't cover things like taking apart the stalks, I guess they don't expect many people to attempt that in the first place.