Hi all,

Driving with high beam on in the LS1275 and a puff of smoke came up from the turn signal switch and high beam died. Bugger. I have replaced the original before with I think it is a Rover (could be wrong) turn signal switch. Having said, is this a problem that's easily fixed. I have dismantled from the steering column and all wires don't seemed to be fried. I am assuming that the 2 wires that go up into the base, one must be the high beam. Is this a throw away job as the unit seems to be unable to be pulled apart?

cheers,

Dave

This is presuming the smoke actually came from inside csteering column shroud like you have said:

Check for a blue/white wire and follow it through the stalk's wiring to the contact. On the other there will also be a blue/red and a solid blue as well. The problem will be between the blue and the blue white wire. Look for a burnt or ruined metal contact, or a loose termination on the wire(s). You may be able to solder the wire if it has broken off the termination, but if the contact is gone its just not econmical to try and fix it, they weren't a very repairable design from new.

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SooperDooperMiniCooperExpertEngineering

All garage work involves equal measures of enthusiasm, ingenuity and a fair degree of irresponsibility.

Thanks Mick,

I left the shroud off from when the last time I fixed it so, it definitely came from the turn signal switch.

Thanks for the advice, will check it out.

cheers,

Dave

Yep, it's buggered. On closer inspection the contact on the Blue and White wire is fried. The plastic housing around the contact has been melted.

Thanks Mick,

cheers,

Dave

Are you running the stock headlights or is it running H4s with bright globes?
Either way it is a good idea to fit relays to the headlight circuit to reduce the load on the switch.

Good point,

I changed to H4s with brighter globes quite some time back, takes someone else to point the obvious out!

Cheers

On this, you have an opportunity here to kill two birds with one stone and save yourself 130 dollars. If you take your working low beam wire(Blue/Red) and use it to operate a changeover relay (has one normally open and one normally closed contact) you can drop the load your indicator assembly has to carry from 16 amps down to less than 0.05 amps and continue to use the current indicator arm.

If you would like to go down this path, you can do the following:
1.Buy a changeover relay from an auto shop (less than 20bux...ish?).
2.Connect the blue/red wire FROM the indicator arm to terminal number 86 and (the numbers are generic to each relay),
3.connect blue/red (from the headlights) to terminal 87
4. connect blue/white (from the headlights) to terminal 87a
5. Create a wire which connects to the blue wire from the light switch. Don't interrupt its path however to the indicator stalk, keep it connected. Connect this tail to terminal 30.
6. connect terminal 85 to ground. Easiest to simply loop it under the bolt you will mount the relay on.

The old low beam wire will now turn a relay on and off. The relay when it is off will cause the highbeams to come on, and when the relay is on will cause low beam to turn on. It can be improved by installing a second relay to remove the full load current from the switch as well, but this will get you out of trouble without a new indicator arm being needed.

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SooperDooperMiniCooperExpertEngineering

All garage work involves equal measures of enthusiasm, ingenuity and a fair degree of irresponsibility.

Thanks Mick,

Project for next weekend,

cheers,

Dave

just a side note, and maybe stating the obvious.

Test it on the bench so you have it straight in your head before you install it, and best to put the relay under the bonnet, on the drivers side inner mudguard getting your power feed off the starter solenoid's live side