Auto Electrican, West Midlands.. needed!

[Jim 2]

Hi folks...

 

Does anyone know of a good reputable Auto Electrician in the West Midlands / Warwickshire area? My headlights are on the fritz (dodgy aftermarket loom is shot) and now with the darker evenings coming in I really need them sorting.

 

Had a skim through yellow pages and struggling to find someone local!

 

Thanks in advance.

[Supercharged 2]

Vince is as good an autoelectrician as you'll find mate...

 

Whats up - my trimsport (pile of shit) loom gets thru a relay every year or so do to corrosion... worth changing them all to be honest - £2 each from maplin

[Jim 2]

Didn't know Vince could do wiring and stuff.. could give him a call.

 

Suspect its relay related but not sure. Problem is relay's are sort of all hard wired into some knot of cables and electrical taped together.. I don't have a clue what i'm doing with electrical wiring so daren't touch it!

[Guest]

Jim,

Autolec in Rugby are pretty good at sorting leccy problems out. You could give em a call and see what they say perhaps? (01788) 573475.

Worth a pop at least.

[Jim 2]

Hi mate..

 

Thanks for that :) Luckily a colleague at work is quite handy with electronics and is helping me get this POS loom sorted out. If he washes his hands of it though, i'll give em a bell :)

[Jim 2]

Well seeing as my factory wiring has already been chopped into, i'm going to be having a go at making a replacement loom up myself but doing it properly - ie weather proofing it, proper connectors, etc.. and just measure it up and make it fit in place of the existing one. Having now had my loom apart, my work colleague was aghast at the butchery that had been committed on the one I currently have..

 

Oh, and we found out its the dipped beam relay thats knackered. But the whole setup needs replacing badly.

[Supercharged 2]

Dude, get 4 new relays from Maplins and then order 2 proper plugs, 4 repair wires and the rubber seals from VAG, bit of heatshrink and some soldering...

[Jim 2]

2 proper plugs, 4 repair wires and the rubber seals from VAG

 

Eh? I don't know what bits you mean...

[Mystic Rado 0]

2 proper plugs, 4 repair wires and the rubber seals from VAG

 

Eh? I don't know what bits you mean...

 

I think he means the OE VAG four-pin connectors that attach to the headlights. You can buy them new from the dealers, part numbers are on here somewhere if you do a search. Means you don't have to rely on dodgy spade connectors to connect the uprated loom to the headlights, plus looks 100 per-cent neater. Basically what you're doing is feeding power direct from the battery via a relay which is triggered by a feed from the original wiring loom. Ideally you want to solder and heatshrink the new loom into the original one and do as much as you can to seal the relays and the fuse holders from water.

 

I had an old Trimsport loom on my Mark 2 that worked well, but gradually died from corrosion, so when I made up one for my 'rado, I sealed everything I could to the max including bagging the relays and using splash-proof fuseholders that should be effectively waterproof. Stay away from crimped connections - next best option to soldering btw, seems to be the crimps that come with a heat-shrink sleeve and adhesive.

[Jim 2]

All good advise. I'm going to slowly gather together as much stuff as I can to do this properly. Maplin do some nice solid rubber / water proof spade fuse holders but i'm still looking at a way of making it look a bit more OE. Hmm...

 

I went to the aforementioned Maplin this weekend and got some tools together and bought some relays, so I could at least affect a temporary repair on my dead one. The existing relay had four different size connectors and rather than just getting a new relay with all four poles the same size, the person who assembled my loom crimped on four different size connectors and actually cut the relay poles to make do. I recrimped the odd size connectors with standard size ones, hooked em up to the new relay and voila.. my lights work on dipped beam again. For now its all electrically taped up and wrapped away in a small plastic bag for a bit of temporary weather protection..

 

Will be scouting out wiring, etc over the coming weeks.

[Supercharged 2]

Well done dude - heatshrink is the way fwd...