My 3rd Eye Saw It Comin

[6 Star]

...before it happened.

Or at least it should have. Hindsight is 20/20.

The 3rd eye harness is very close to the battery. Rats were hungry and ate some of the insulation off of the red and black wires in the harness. Went to pull the battery to use in a different car; took off the negative terminal first, and then wrecklessly set it down in front of the battery, with the positive terminal still connected. Before I could undo the positive terminal I heard a "snick" similar to a fuse popping. The negative terminal had brushed those exposed wires... either the red, or black, or both.

Now the highbeams work, as well as the "beam" icon on the dash. But once the 3rd eye button is pressed, neither it or the "center light" icon on the dash work.

The 3rd eye was funtional before, door and light.

McBrat, the one who built the straight-axle '82 Brat, had a diagram on "Indys World . com" but unfortunately that site is no longer up.

What kind of tests can I do? Did I blow a relay or worse the 3rd eye?

Edited September 21, 2019 by 6 Star
Dash icon says "center light" not "passing light"

[el_freddo]

That shouldn’t have been an issue. Once the negative cable is removed from the battery, it can touch the positive etc and there won’t be any flying sparks or burning to the wiring. 

Something else is at play here I reckon - unless you’ve got a second battery hooked up or some sort of capacitor for a subwoofer etc. if either of those were not disconnected or discharged, then you’d have sparks and burning/melting wire conduit. 

All the best in sorting out the issue!

Cheers 

Bennie

 

Edited September 21, 2019 by el_freddo

[Subi81]

Working on getting my passing light working too, maybe these can help you out, the black box relay looks like a frig electrical maze.

Pictures are from a 81 factory manual I can scan them if you need better quality.  Funny looked at the main wiring diagram nothing mentioned about the passing light, maybe it was an afterthought.

Good luck

[6 Star]

The wiring in this Brat is questionable. No extra batteries or capacitors... however there have been past owners who have made their mods to the wiring for fans, lights, maybe other things.

It was cool that the center light was working... sat in the woods for ten years and functioned like new. Could have been this event or when I started putting the wiring back to stock. Will have to do more digging.

[Subi81]

What I did is check each component by itself working from the motor back to the switch, then from the switch towards the motor, I think I found my issue, it's a shorted green/white wire from the switch to the relay, this is the wire that tells the relay to do it's business and lights the dash light.  I should have known when I push the switch all the lights go a little bit dimmer indicating a big draw but the passing light doesn't come on.  I will attempt to jump this wire to battery to see if the light cycles.

The colors in the manual are not the same as on my 81 Subaru, so the numbers are probably more useful, plug is oriented as so at the motor connector looking towards the motor as shown in the picture.

642

531

First I unplugged the light/motor connector it's a 6 pin connector located between the battery and the passenger headlight.  If you jump battery voltage from the center black pin #3 (negative) to the red wire #6 (positive), you can get the motor to cycle continuously.  This will allow you to check and see if:

• The motor works
• The light cover moves freely
• The switch in the motor works, by checking continuity between pins 4,2,5, basically continuity should switch between continuity and no continuity as the door opens and closes.

The light can be checked by jumping negative to #3 and positive to pin #1

Then I moved to the relay, on my car it's a largish black plastic Mitsubishi relay located on the farthest passenger side just in front of the shock tower but before the coil.  I repeated all those steps on the wiring from the relay to the motor to check that the wires from the relay to the motor yielded the correct results, i.e. motor turned etc,  the relay has the #'s printed on it so it makes it easy to identify the correct circuit.

Disassembled the relay and checked for obvious failure in a capacitor or resister or solider joint.

Reassembled and checked for continuity on the relay, #8 should go to #1,#2,#3,#6 but 3 will just give you a beep due to the capacitor. #9 should go to #5,#4,#3 with #4 and #3 just giving you a beep.

#9 should have battery power all the time

#8 should only have battery power when the switch is turned on and should not be shorted to ground or should have high resistance to ground since it could ground thru the dash indicator light or the passing lamp indicator light.

Video of cover moving located here, this is battery voltage straight to cover motor.

 

 

Edited March 16 by Subi81
Removed picture

[Subi81]

Well I am stumped, battery voltage directly to the relay thru pin #8 and #9 resulted in only the light turning on.  Some more pictures for your viewing pleasure.

Took a 2nd passing light assembly apart to see how the door open closed switch works, since i think this might be messed up on my unit picture shown is my backup passing light assembly that has a fubared motor.

Mitsubishi should be Mitsuba

 

 

 

 

Edited March 16 by Subi81
Removed pictures

[6 Star]

Turns out the switch for the Center Light was bad.

Pulled it out of the dash and it looked like it had been underwater with rust happening.

Swapped it out with a better condition switch and the 3rd Eye is active again.

Thanks for your posts el_freddo and Subi81. Feel as though I understand the Center Light setup more now, even though I didnt have to dig very far. Checked grounds and connections, then checked that the bulb itself was good, before trading out the switch itself.

[Subi81]

Glad you got yours working, finally got mine working, as far as I can tell it was both something in the relay module and the motor location contacts were buggered up and not giving constant contact.  I'll get a picture of the dash light when I get that working.

Cleaned the contacts and replaced the relay module with a good one and it works flawlessly now.

6625 is how BAD contacts look, noticed green light is blinking on and off randomly.

6626 is how GOOD contacts look, noticed green light only turns off when it reaches door open or door closed position and makes contact in all other places.

6633 is a video of the passing light in action with no grill.

Picture is of bad contacts I think the problem is mostly the far left contact, the grease looks like it took some heat and created come sort of Chernobly that hindered current flow.

 

Edited September 28, 2019 by Subi81
Added picture of bad contacts

[Subi81]

Dash is a little different on an 81 just posting for the heck of it.

 

Edited September 30, 2019 by Subi81
Added photo

[6 Star]

Always liked the look of the early 2nd generation Leone gauges. Somehow they look more modern than the '82 and after facelifted 2nd gens. Probably has to do with the cutouts for the gauges not being totally round, they have that straight section that goes from the right and covers the middle of both the rpm and speedo needles.

That "blinking" action of the light outside the car was fun to watch, glad you got yours figured out as well.

[mcbrat]

site is still live.....

http://www.indysworld.com/subaru/index.html

center lamp stuff can be found on the left side, under the original USRM, or the Helpful diagrams page