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benniferj

Member Since: 20 Oct 2016
Location: Basingstoke
Posts: 361

Had rear chassis rails welded... lost some rear lights

Hi all
Had my local weld up around the rear bump stop areas on my 90 chassis (2.5na/200tdi era)
This involved plasma cutting a U section out and welding in a neat plate and some bump stop brackets.
Looks very well done and no complaints there, but driving home realise I have no brake lights and LH indicators. RH indicators, Fog, Sidelights & Reverse light seem fine. The brakes and LH indicator is now intermittent, so not a fuse gone, maybe a warped cable outer that is arcing just slightly and thus not working?

Spoke to welder and he says the loom was pushed up and should be fine - not his fault exactly but please check connections at the rear end where loom breaks out at hitch. I'm fairly convinced that the loom has been melted around the chassis rail (the loom travels down the drivers side chassis rail yeah?)

Im not up for a big slating or argument with him about it - its a good welding job, a useful place to get spares and a nice guy. So I just need to repair my rear electrics situation. Whats the best way of going about this? Im considering running some fresh cable (I have some 1.5mm x 5core mains armoured flex that sounds suitable) so where is my best place to tap rear left indicator and a brake light feed from? And at the same time, i'd need to remove the line to the current 'dodgy' loom or I guess it will short/arc or whatever it is doing now. Where does the front point of the multipin wire into the electrics and relays?

Cheers for help - bit of a weird one. Any advice appreciated.

21st Jan 2017 10:10am

grafty99

Member Since: 15 Aug 2012
Location: North Devon
Posts: 4795

I think the loom to the rear enters the chassis rail in the engine bay so that would be the most likely point of tapping into the loom. I would definitely be on to the garage though as they have damaged it - if he is a nice chap then he will admit his mistake and get it fixed. The loom is almost definitely melted as plasma cutting generates a LOT of heat especially in a confined box section. 2002 90 Td5 Station Wagon
1990 Vogue SE
Triumph Tiger Explorer 1200
Td5 90 Thread http://www.defender2.net/forum/topic50767.html
Tdi 110 Thread https://www.defender2.net/forum/topic69562.html
RRC Thread http://www.defender2.net/forum/topic54492.html
Instagram http://www.instagram.com/george_grafton

21st Jan 2017 10:24am

mk1collector

Member Since: 17 Sep 2009
Location: West Yorkshire
Posts: 6772

Have you checked the bulbs just in case? Ray
My build thread
http://www.defender2.net/forum/topic17615.html

21st Jan 2017 10:39am

benniferj

Member Since: 20 Oct 2016
Location: Basingstoke
Posts: 361

It's all LED on the back end. I did a conversion about 6 months ago and its been rock solid. The wiring at the back end in each cluster was a little dodgy so it took a long time to sort all the earths and get everything working solid.

As much as it should be on the garage I really don't think I'm going to get far with them on this. They're really good for some things and not so good for others. But very practical as less than 5 mins from my workshop.

I believe this multipin for all the rear lights comes from just by the drivers side footwell (correct?) and I know the colour code for the lights on the back end from where I worked it all out before. So I can just snip into that loom and run a few fresh lines and hopefully it works. I will of course check all my connections at the rear end first in case he's pulled the loom up and pulled a few spades out.

Or do I pull the whole loom back through the chassis, repair any dodgy lines and then run above the chassis rail to future proof against this sort of thing?

21st Jan 2017 10:45am

grafty99

Member Since: 15 Aug 2012
Location: North Devon
Posts: 4795

I would repair properly, especially if you have the time and inclination then pull the loom through and repair properly. Whilst there you could run some more cables to the rear for future upgrades

2002 90 Td5 Station Wagon
1990 Vogue SE
Triumph Tiger Explorer 1200
Td5 90 Thread http://www.defender2.net/forum/topic50767.html
Tdi 110 Thread https://www.defender2.net/forum/topic69562.html
RRC Thread http://www.defender2.net/forum/topic54492.html
Instagram http://www.instagram.com/george_grafton

21st Jan 2017 10:51am

benniferj

Member Since: 20 Oct 2016
Location: Basingstoke
Posts: 361

Thanks, I'll be looking into it on Monday.
So out of interest is it easy to pull that loom through the chassis(so it comes out the crossmember end) or does the multi pin get stuck on things along the way? I would hate to pull it and have it get stuck half way down :/

21st Jan 2017 2:48pm

foxyred

Member Since: 16 Jul 2016
Location: Nottingham
Posts: 227

1994 Defender 90 200 Tdi HT Montalcino Red

Yes the multi pug has to come off ! Make sure you tie something like blue rope to the end then you can pull backwards if you get stuck and take your time its a faff

21st Jan 2017 2:54pm

benniferj

Member Since: 20 Oct 2016
Location: Basingstoke
Posts: 361

Oh man, ok, I'll be super careful then. Or just run a couple of fresh lines back, might cause less peril!

21st Jan 2017 3:16pm

grafty99

Member Since: 15 Aug 2012
Location: North Devon
Posts: 4795

I would repair if you can instead of running new cables, it will start to get messy and confusing. Or remove completely and replace with new cables but I wouldn't leave redundant wiring in there. But that's just me

21st Jan 2017 4:08pm

custom90

Member Since: 21 Jan 2010
Location: South West, England.
Posts: 20616

Replace sections of same grade mm2 thinwall cable using solder and heatshrink.
Or is access impossible?
For now I'd leave batter sompleteoy diconnected or isolate everything to be safe!

That'll also stop fuse getting blown if they aren't already. Chillin In The Backwoods🇬🇧🇺🇸
⛽️🛢️⚙️🧰💪

21st Jan 2017 5:19pm

Retroanaconda

Member Since: 04 Jan 2012
Location: Scotland
Posts: 2701

Pull the loom out of the chassis, then repair/replace to suit. And then run it externally in some conduit, don't bother putting it back inside. It will pull out without removing multiplugs, pull it forward out of the big hole below drivers footwell after disconnecting at rear quarter.

Not pulling the loom out and just 'pushing it up out of the way' before cutting/welding the chassis frankly stinks of laziness and poor workmanship. For that reason alone I would avoid that garage in future - what else do they cut corners on because they can't be arsed to do the job properly?

21st Jan 2017 5:51pm

benniferj

Member Since: 20 Oct 2016
Location: Basingstoke
Posts: 361

I have a couple of battery cut offs so fortunately that is not something that isn't going to worry me while I'm at work ... It wit be in flames when I return!

im going to digest all this advice and probably pull the loom out and repair. As far as the company involved... I'm not going to name and shame... But searching the name on this board only brings up praise. It's very hard finding a good independent. Yes, flat out denial that this is an issue does stink, and i really avoid having any garage do work for me if myself or any of my off road buddies can assist. Unfortunately heavy duty welding is one of those circumstances.

I will have a word with them again on Monday and see if I can push the matter, I guess I need a chance to fully inspect what has happened.

Cheers for everyone's help!

21st Jan 2017 11:38pm

thompjas

Member Since: 07 Mar 2014
Location: Northants
Posts: 36

Wiring loom

as mentioned by other people, bets thing is to pull the loom our of the chassis, inspect and repair as necessary. When I done my rear cross member I fed the wires back into the chassis after tying on a stiff piece of wire and taped over the join to make it as smooth as possible.

It helped by having someone at the rear feeding in the stiff wire into the chassis as I pulled the loom from the from (located on the inside rail of the drives side rail and just be the bulkhead support) slowly does it !

to re-install - just a reverse procedure - there are several places to snag on, so twisting and pulling back and forth slowly helps !

best of luck

23rd Jan 2017 12:18pm

Mo Murphy

Member Since: 01 Jun 2008
Location: Letchworth Garden City, Herts
Posts: 2282

1984 Defender 90 BMW M57 3.0 Diesel HT Auto Pennine Grey

Don't run it back down the inside of the longitudinal, wrap it well and pop it into some conduit and run it along the top of the longitudinal. That way it can easily be removed in future welding sessions (there will be more) or for fault finding rear light problems.
Mo The Land Rover 90 - Many are called, few are chosen.

50 Shades of Pennine Grey

23rd Jan 2017 2:45pm

benniferj

Member Since: 20 Oct 2016
Location: Basingstoke
Posts: 361

Ok, so today has been very stressful and I have almost resolved it.
In the end I ran some 5core 1.5mm cable as a fresh run down to the back. This gives me 2 more lines if I need any more if anything fails in future. I still couldn't get a working brake light feed. I wired it up correctly and was getting no illumination. I tested that the lights worked by using the indicator feed on them so the ground is definitely fine to the brake light. What was throwing things was that my brake light switch has failed. Lots of tapping feeds and jumpering the whole loom (at length) led me to this conclusion.

So now the rear end and both looms are wired correctly but brake lights only work when bridging the sensor feed. I will get a new sensor and then should be back on the road. I really need to tidy up the rear end sometime at leisure though as the earth feeds are all over the place and dreadful. Will end up running a chassis earth to each lighting cluster and common them together.

I know a proper job would have been pulling the whole loom but with some extras like pin-pin shock relocation mounts plus a chassis mounting fuel tank guard I was concerned that the additional bolts may make me end up with a stuck loom half way down... plus the front section of loom splits many ways so it was going to be detrimental to the whole vehicle.

Could the damaged rear loom have caused damage to the brake light switch as well? I believe to the best of my knowledge they have been working solidly up until this point... so unlikely... can these issues be co-incidence???

23rd Jan 2017 8:16pm

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