'86 245DL Fuse Box Location / Wiper problem

Hi everyone,

I just bought a 1986 245DL. When I got it, the wipers weren't able to park by themselves. Yesterday, they stopped working all together. The washer fluid, rear wiper and horn all work fine.

I would like to check the wiper fuse but I cannot find the fuse box. There is a panel in the driver side footwell (left of hood release) but it's confusing because the label says, "Fuse box located in engine bay. See owners manual." Sorry if this is a dumb question, I have searched Google and Brickboard and can't find much.

Thank you very much.

Reply to
pravinkpant
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Hello:

I've owned a number of 240's and my first was a 76 242 DL. On that and all others the fuse panel was located at the driver side footwell--although there may have been a secondary fuse panel located in the engine compartment. I simply don't recall now. I can say there is no secondary fuse panel in the engine bay on my 93 24o wagon.

Anyway, remove the fuse panel cover in the driver's side footwell.

In the US and Canadian markets the wiper fuse is 16 amperes and is fuse #2 (second from the top.) This is clearly indicated on the label on the inside of the cover. The left side of the label indicates fuses and what they are for in French, right side is in English.

The labeling may vary depending on your country of residence--but my guess if the location of the fuse will not, as that would make no sense.

Note: while you have the fuse panel open it's a good idea to remove every fuse, clean all terminals with emery cloth of fine sandpaper and then "squeeze" then together gently to ensure the fuse will fit tightly. Late 70's and early 80's 240's were notorious where I lived for failure of the fuel injection system or erratic performance--which was nearly always a "loose" fuse (#6) for the FI and fuel pump.

It's also not a bad idea to coat the terminals with a light bit of dielectric grease.

I still remember an incident back in 1982 when I was on a remote section of I-5 in California. A woman was stranded with her fairly new

240 and the Triple A mechanic was baffled. 5 minutes later she was on her way and the Triple A guy (pretty sharp tech) had learned something new about Volvos. He HAD checked the fuses and they looked good and "felt" tight but that one was not.

Good Luck!

Doc

Reply to
doc

Hi Doc,

In addition to your excellent advice re cleaning the terminals and fuse contacts, "squeezing" the terminals, and coating with dielectric grease, I would like to add my 2¢ worth:

To finally (hopefully?) end this troublesome corrosion problem, replace all of these ceramic fuses which have grey-colored metal contact ends with correct amp value types which have brass/copper ends. I found that my local Volvo dealer didn't stock them (shame!) but an outfit specialising in VW parts did (humiliating!).

This should end the "galvanic action" between the dissimilar metals. ( At least......... that's my theeeeeeery.)

Regarding the "fuse box located in the engine bay", perhaps this refers to the little box attached to the positive terminal of the battery, containing four "blade-type" fuses. I'm not sure if our '86 had this but our '93 does.

Good Luck. Andy I.

Reply to
brackenburn

Thank you all for your good advice. Despite the panel's vague information, the footwell panel does seem to be the main fuse box. The wiper motor fuse looks fine - I even replaced it with a new one, still no dice.

The wiper motor seems to have a 4-wire harness attached to it. Oddly, a yellow wire is clipped. I noticed this was disconnected since I had the car (even when the wipers were working). I'm wondering if it was why my wipers wouldn't park.

Anyway, I used a 12V test bulb (engine off, ignition key to power 'accessories', wiper switch on) and attached the ground to the chassis and the red wire to the red wire to the wiper motor, and I got a light. Can I deduce from this that the motor is bad, since it doesn't function despite it receiving adequate power? Can a motor fail quickly with no sign? I hear nothing from it, it just stopped working one day.

Also, is it worth pulling the motor apart to see if the magnet is broken? This seems to be a common 240 problem.

Thank you all very much for your advice. This is my first 240 and this is definitely time looking at an electrical challenge... maybe these two things are related. :)

Pravin

Reply to
pravinkpant

Yes, yellow is for parking. There's probably a problem with the park contacts inside the motor, causing the fuse to blow, which is why the wire is snipped. Make sure the motor is grounded - the motor is mounted on rubber feet, there's just a thin metal contact wrapped around one of them for ground, while later motors had a separate, dedicated ground wire. Also, with the ignition and wipers on low speed, make sure the brown wire has power. And finally, a dead interval relay can cause the wipers not to work - to test you can join the black-white wire to the white wire (relay out) where they go into the relay. The relay is usually a black 6 pin relay hanging on the harness behind the dead pedal.

Reply to
Mike F

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