Hi,
I was checking the voltage accross the foot-light in my '84 Z31 (2+2), I took the bulb out and accidently short circuited the bulb socket. Now after I put the blub back in, the foot light only comes on when i open the passenger door, but not the driver-side door. However when I open the driver-side door the ceiling light still works.

Does anyone have any ideas on what is wrong, and how to fix it?

BTW, I'm thinking of installing Neons- does anyone have any oppinions on this, and does anyone have an oppinion on whether LEDs are better or worse than Neons.

Lonnie

 

My only thought is that something is wrong with the wire from the door button to the bulb, but I don't know how that would happen...
The fuse can't be blown, because the light comes on when the other door is opened, however the button must work, because it turns on the ceiling light.
I'm confused...
by the way, neither of the foot-lights come on when the driver door opens, only the ceiling light.

 

please do not use neons. imho they are too tacky and ricey.

 

I think it may have something to do with the connection to the door button. does anyone know how to get to the other side of the button which the door lights work off?

 

anyway, i pulled the button out, and according to my manual there is a wire going to a 'time control unit'. Does anyone know what this does, and if it cause be part of the problem. Also how can I find out which wire that one is, and which the other two wires are. The colours are different to what it says in the book.

 

The time control system unit is responsible for:

1 - Intermittant wiper control
2 - Interior lamp timer
3 - Door key hole illumination
4 - Illumination control timer
5 - Light warning timer
6 - Key warning timer
7 - Seat belt warning timer
8 - Rear defogger timer

Also, the door switches complete the electrical circuit to ground.

I'm going to take a guess and say that when you short circuited the bulb socket you somehow lost one of your paths to ground close to the socket, When you open the passenger side door you're completing the path to ground through an alternate path.

Remove the bulb again, take your volt meter and:

1 - set for voltage and open the passenger side door. Probe the socket and see which side has voltage.

2 - Close passenger side door

3 - set meter for continuity check / ohms and then probe the OTHER contact of the switch which should be your ground side.

4 - open driver side door and see if you have a path to ground. (probably not)

5 - close driver side door and open passenger side door and see if you have path to ground (probably so)

6 - back track loss of ground on driver side.



You may also want to check and see if some of the functions in the above list are working properly. Such as the illumination slowly fading out as normal when the door is shut or if all the lights simply go off the second the door is shut.

(ps - electrical diagram now attached)

PT

 

I ended up wiring it from the ceiling light so i can set the neons to on/door/of with that, and made a switch to change from neon lights to regular lights. It all worked well

I also just put remote central locking in it, fairly easy and cheap mod if you want to waste a few hours