Date: Tue, 2 Oct 2001 12:08:48 -0400
Reply-To: David Beierl <dbeierl@ATTGLOBAL.NET>
Sender: Vanagon Mailing List <vanagon@gerry.vanagon.com>
From: David Beierl <dbeierl@ATTGLOBAL.NET>
Subject: Re: Wiring! Will I make it through it??
In-Reply-To: <4.1.20011002022424.015cdf08@diversity.he.net>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"; format=flowed
What test gear do you have? A digital voltmeter will be very helpful.
At 05:38 AM 10/2/2001, The River Clan wrote:
>1. There's a white wire, 14ga.. in the same harness as the red wire that
>goes to the fridge relay that appears to "click" a relay (assumption) in
>the back of the fridge. The Bentley says the wire for the fridge is bigger
>than this, and also red. They don't even show a white wire. I tried it
>thinking it was the fridge 12v line, but alas, nothing happened after a
>couple hours and a thermometer in the box. What could be clicking behind
>the fridge? And if it's not the proper wire... where did mine go? ; )
Looking at Bentley 97.32(a/b/c) what wires do you have accounted
for? What parts of the schematic do you understand, and what parts
not? The only thing that would be likely to click (and the only electrical
item actually on the back of the fridge) is the fan -- is that wired,
tested, working?
>2. The LED's are funky to me. After looking at this site:
>http://pws.prserv.net/synergy/Vanagon/LEDpanel.htm it appears they were
>funky to him too, cuz he rebuilt the LED panel.. but doesn't really explain
>why.
Mostly I added a couple of things. I did fiddle with the trigger levels
for the water LEDs a bit to make the red >> yellow transition work a bit
better in my installation.
>Basically, the water tank (it's probably an ' 81 wiring and interior)
>even at 3/4 full still shows on the second from the bottom red led. If I
>touch the top plugin.. it goes to green. It was at green while filling it..
>but when we stopped the fill, it went to red. What happened to the yellow
>LED? Is this just funky?
The level detector is marginal. The bolt-heads inside the tank have to be
*clean* -- try a glass scratch-brush. If that doesn't cure it, mix a
tablespoonful of salt in a quart of warm water and stir it into the full
tank -- if it then works correctly, the circuit probably wants a bit of
tweaking but is basically ok. If not then you have to look farther. To
quick-test the panel (you could do this first) -- unplug it, give it power
on pin 4 (orange) and ground on pin 6 (black). Hook a 5-megohm pot
(anywhere from 2meg to 10meg) from pin 2 (green) to pin 6 -- use the center
terminal and one end terminal. As you rotate the pot, the lights should go
from none >> red >> yellow >> green or vise versa. Radio Shack sells
packages of clip-leads that make this easy.
Print out the schematic from the website and call me 401 225-5004.
>3. We found when filling the water tank, if we didn't pull of the cap
>inside the cabinet, it filled soooo slowly that it kicked back about 3/4 of
>the water out the exterior fill box. Is this normal? What a hassle if it's
>packed! Is there a workaround on this?
See if you have a spider nest in the vent hose.
>4. The pilot light LED stays on all the time. Strange. Since the fridge
>didn't work on propane (we have never been able to get it started) we're
>gonna pull it out tomarrow and try to get it running where we can see
>everything. We installed it in a leap of faith <sigh> Should have tested
>first!
With the panel unplugged but with power as above, the LED should be
off. Now hook a penlight battery to with *negative* end to pin 3 (white)
and *positive* end to pin 6 (black). LED should light. If so, probably a
wiring/grounding problem, i.e. panel is OK.
>5. Our water temp gauge isn't registering anymore. It quit today. Nothing.
>Zip. It blinks when we're starting, but it never goes about the bottom peg.
>Is this probably just a connection thing?
Probably the connection at the sender (on the thermostat housing, single
wire). Maybe bad sender. Maybe bad connection at the panel connector.
david
David Beierl - Providence, RI
http://pws.prserv.net/synergy/Vanagon/
'84 Westy "Dutiful Passage"
'85 GL "Poor Relation"
