Allegro Club International

[Colin T]

Yes, it's me again with another electrical problem.

My right hand indicator is flashing very very slowly (when car is stationary). The left hand indicator is fine. The hazards won't work.

I have recently swapped about the hazard switch and removed and replaced the instrument binnacle, but cannot see what is causing this (don't think it's the hazard switch).

This did happen before in November, I only noticed it on one journey, the left side was slow again although faster than it is now (that was whilst driving along though, so battery could be a little low making it even slower now.

Can anybody help?

Thanks, Colin.
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Hell has frozen over...... the car formally known as 'Heap' is back on the road!

[Paul-V]

Colin,

Two possibilities occur to me:

If your car is fitted with side repeater lamps, the one on the 'slow' side may not be working.

or

On the 'slow' side, you have high resistance on one of the connections, meaning that the lamps are not drawing the full current (still working, but not at full brightness/efficiency)

Remove the bulbs, and make sure that their contacts are clean/not corroded. Check that the connectors to the front and rear lamps are in good condition. Check that the front and rear earth points are in good condition (where a bunch of earth wires all come together and bolt to the bodywork).

[Laurence]

Also check where each bulb bayonet casing fits into the bulb holder as this is where the earth connection is.

Remove front & rear bulbs & check the casing for white deposits & check the holders for white deposits, clean off with emery paper or wire wool.

If any of the bulb glass is blackened (internally), change for new bulbs, they sometimes blacken due to bad earths.

I've cleaned off the white deposits in the front indicator bulb holders using a drill to carefully grind to a clean surface.

On my S3 Allegro, I've drilled drain holes in each 'compartment' floor of each rear light unit to allow the water to drain & have drilled drain 1/8'' holes in the corners of the boot floor. The boot floor drain holes are an official Allegro 'mod'.

[Colin T]

Thanks guys, it was a dead repeater. I should have checked this first but it raining and I had beaten a hasty retreat inside!

The repeaters do not make good contact with their bulbholders. They appear to not work very easily, and then just a very slight wiggle will get them working again. I have tried in the past to 'tweek' the contacts of the bulbholder but this appears to have had limited success.

Would it be possible to increase the contact areas on the capless repeater bulbs by adding solder to them? Or would the heat generated by the soldering iron damage the bulb element?
_________________
Hell has frozen over...... the car formally known as 'Heap' is back on the road!

[Graham]

I think you can bend the wire away from the glass??
Then solder them, that'd do it.
Or a bit of thin plastic between wire and glass (glue to the glass?) to make the spring contact in the bulb holder push harder against the wire?

[Laurence]

The repeater bulbholder contacts could be corroded, if so, use a small flatblade screwdriver to scrape away any crud.

I have found the multi-pin plug for the repeater light unit wires becomes badly corroded on my Allegro, especially the RH one near the battery & it becomes very fragile due to degradation etc.

I've sraped the corrosion from the pins & the holes of the male & female plug & socket, & spayed with WD40 etc.

[Laurence]

Sorry, the side repeater light wires don't have a multi-pin plug/socket but, instead there are 'bullet' type connectors.

I pressed 'submit' then realised my mistake but I had to have a look at the wiring on the car to confirm it.

[Colin T]

I think my repeaters are different again - they are the capless bulb rectangular repeaters, the problem is the bulbholder, as the capless bulbs only have two thin wires contacting the bulbholder.
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Hell has frozen over...... the car formally known as 'Heap' is back on the road!

[Laurence]

MiniSpares www.minispares.com part number AAU3296 side repeater is similar looking to the oblong/rectangular Allegro unit but it has the chrome apparent around the lens.

It's not a 'direct' fit & the lens seems to be not so amber/full coloured as the Allegro unit lens & the screws which secure it to the body don't have the same spacing as the Allegro unit.

I have fitted an S2 front wing to my Allegro which didn't have the side repeaters as standard, so I drilled the holes to match the Mini Special units.

I'm not too worried about authenticity so I thought that the Mini units would, from a distance, pass muster.

[Paul-V]

The late series 3 repeater lamps were common to the (A-series) Metro, but the length of the wiring may be different.

I believe these were also fitted to the Land Rover 90/110 for a number of years before they went over to the Rover 45-style repeaters.

[Colin T]

I'll have another look at the bulbholder this week, but last time I had this problem there wasn't any corrosion, it was just a poor connection due to the spare of the bulbholder meeting the tiny wires on the capless bulb, hence my idea to increase the contact surface area by adding solder to those tiny wires on the bulb.

I think I have a spare bulb, so if soldering does kill the filament by the heat transferring through the wire, I can just replace it. I assume they're still available from motor factors/halfords.
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Hell has frozen over...... the car formally known as 'Heap' is back on the road!

[Laurence]

It may be worth checking the wires on the capless bulb with a magnifying glass to check that both wires are still present.

I remember trying to get a capless bulb to work properly by fiddling around with it until I realised that one of the wires was missing, the bulb worked sometimes when I moved it so that the 'stump' of the missing wire made contact.

The Unipart number for the capless bulb is GLB501 which should be available from motor factors etc.

If you do have a problem obtaining GLB501, Minispares list them.