w124 elec & cooling problems

[EEEDELLI]

Folks,

I recently acquired (was given!) a rather battered w124 230CE (G reg (90?)) as a possible second car.

When you use the foglight switch, only the front foglights come on. The rear bulb is ok. The Haynes is a bit vague about the wiring, mentioning a 'lighting control unit' which is shown in their diagrams. I need to see whether the 12v feed is coming from it to determine whether it's a wiring fault .... but where is the control unit located? (No mention in the Haynes!)

There's also a problem with the rear door windows. Both are dead. I haven't had a chance to check through yet but it's not just the child safety switch and all the fuses seem ok.

It also has a duff head gasket and, with frost on the way, I drained the radiator recently. Haynes shows another drain on the block. It appears, from the pics, to be under the exhaust manifold but I can't see it on mine. Were they always fitted with one and did it appear in different places?

Any ideas?

Regards,
D.

 

[andy_k]

the foglight switch is/should be two position have you tried it in both?

CE with rear doors? I thought the CE was a 2 door coupe but if you are sure the fuses are ok (take them out and clean them) I'd first of all try the windows witha different switch to see if that isolates the fault then I'd start looking at the wiring running to the motors. Are you sure it's not the child safety switch? Do the window switches in the rear illuminate when the lights are switched on? if not no power is getting to them.

Andy K

 

[Spike]

Andy is on the right track here.... The rear foglight is a separate switch and not with the fronts.

Rear windows? Its unlikely that both motors would fail at the same time....especially the rears as they are used less frequently. Likely to be the switches or possibly the relay which is under the rear nearside seat. When you press the window button, can you hear the relay click? If you can, then the switch is ok and the problem is somewhere between the relay or the motor.

Draining the coolent.....Yeah I had this problem, I couldnt find the drain on the block.... I assume it is around the waterpump area but the Haynes manual is less than clear on this.

 

[EEEDELLI]

Thanks guys.

Sorry - yes, it's a bog standard 230E not a CE - that would have been really nice!

Ah! Separate switch you say, Spike? I searched all round the dash until I thought of pulling the main lighting switch towards me, whereupon the front fogs came on (at least I assumed they were fogs rather than just extra driving lamps or whatever). (No owner's manual so it's all guesswork plus Haynes, which is not much use for that sort of thing.)

Surely it makes sense for the rear to come on at the same time as the front from the same switch? I couldn't see any other switch that looked remotely like a rear fog switch and the Haynes circuit diagram doesn't help too much - it seems to show just the main lighting switch. I notice that there is a 'linked' double pole switch with a warning bulb 'built into' the same box on the schematic so I'm guessing that this is the pull switch for the fogs; possibly one pole for fronts and one for back. My guess is that one pole is either not working on the switch or dead on arrival at the switch, or theres a break somewhere after the switch (such as in the lighting control unit).

Where would the other switch be for the rear fog then? (Any ideas about this lighting control unit location, too?)

Re: Windows. Ah - so that's where the relays are! Haven't had a chance to look and now have a problem to deal with on my citroen (amongst all sorts of other things such as work) over the weekend so I'm not sure I'll get to it. It's certainly not going to be the motors with both off. It must be a common feed. I'd already tried the child lock switch but to no avail and the fuse (from memory) feeds the fronts and backs but the fronts are fine so it's not going to be that either.

Spike - it could well be that the layout is different if you have a CE and I actually have an E so the relays might not be there after all. I'll have to have a look!

Regards,
David.

 

[Spike]

IIRC, you pull the swich out one click for the front and pull it out further (second click) for the rear fogs. You'll know you got it right because the amber blob in the switch illuminates when the rear fog comes on.

 

[EEEDELLI]

Doh!! Thanks Spike. I wouldn't have thought of pulling it out *two* stops! That's a classic bit of lovely German engineering logic which makes total sense now I've seen it.

Yes - the rear fog does indeed work perfectly! (That was an easy one!)

I've just discovered that the heated rear window doesn't appear to do so, though (at least the LED indicator on the switch doesn't light. More problems (and still not enough time to sort them but 'hey')!

Ta,
David.

 

[andy_k]

if it's a 4 door then the windows will very probably be "broken" because of a bit of faulty wring...

pull the rubber grommet back where the cables pass from the door pillar to the door and look for any signs of frayed,worn or snapped wires.

we had the same problem with our W123 and W124, adding a bit of wire to the loom to replace the broken section cured the problem immediately.

If memory serves me correctly the wire in that bit of the loom feeding the live to the window motors is the green one on the passenger side and the yellow one on the drivers side.

HTH

Andy

 

[john lang]

Block drain

Hi
The block drain does exist, it's just extremely well hidden. It's under the exhaust manifold and you can just see it from underneath the car.
Getting a spanner on it is really difficult, but you can do it - just !
Good luck - you'll need it.............
John the labrador : :x