Date: Tue, 7 May 2002 13:14:41 -0500
Reply-To: Chris Mills <scmills@TNTECH.EDU>
Sender: Vanagon Mailing List <vanagon@gerry.vanagon.com>
From: Chris Mills <scmills@TNTECH.EDU>
Subject: Re: cig lighter light?
In-Reply-To: <F5W8Sw2vbcsgrPBrsoJ0000ed1b@hotmail.com>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"; format=flowed
Hello. I drive a '78 so the wiring is certainly different BUT I can tell
you how this lighter is wired I think.
The light on the cig lighter is tied to the dash lights. The wire color
code should be the same as the wires on the back of the instruments. You
can tie them together.
The cig lighter itself is probably on a circuit all by itself or doubled up
on a fuse in the fuse panel.
The light and the cigarette lighter both grounds through the lighters outer
shell. That is - the lighter housing itself is the ground and either your
dash has a metal backing (under the vinyl/foam of the dash) or the lighter
housing will have a wire from the lighter housing to a ground terminal
somewhere under the dash.
The hot wire for this lighter will be a red wire that hooks to the back and
center of the lighter. You can connect this to the right wire or do what I
have done in my VW and Honda and that is run a hot wire straight from the
battery through a fuse. The in-line fuse you add should be a 15 amp fuse.
Put the in-line fuse near the battery.
I did this on my Honda because that car switches off power to the cigarette
lighter when the key is off b/c the car has such a small battery and
anything you might leave on would drain the battery in short order. On my
VW I added a new fuse panel in the engine compartment with 6 new circuits
to get the big loads off of the main wire that feeds the fuse panel.
At 11:21 AM 5/7/02 -0400, you wrote:
>hi everybody,
>a couple of days ago i posted a note about this little light that is
>attached to my cig lighter behind the dashof my 90gl. i wanted to know
>what it was and if there needed to be a ground wire coming out of the back
>of its plastic housing because it looked to me that there is a female
>connector there and no dangling wire. there is a wiring harness going to
>the cig lighter with about 5 wires but nothing to this light. this light
>has never worked for me and i never even knew it was there until i fooling
>around in there the other day. so, is this a light to light up the green
>plastic on the cig lighter? and should there be some connection going to
>it other then the piece of metal that attaches it to the cig lighter housing?
>just curious
>jason
>90gl
>ps. i have to let my van idle for atleast 3 minutes or she dies
>immediatley. there i've said it.
>
>
>----------
>Get your FREE download of MSN Explorer at http://explorer.msn.com.
Chris M. <Busbodger - "TEAM SLOWPOKE">
Cookeville, Tennessee
ICQ# 5944649
scm9985@tntech.edu
'78 VW Westfalia (67 HP -> that is...67 Hamster Power)
'65 Beetle - Type IV powered
'99 CR-V AWD station wagon
'81 CB900 Custom moto-chickle
2.5 Corvair engines for my Trans-vair Conversion