The amber front right, and the amber side right running lights don't work anymore. I checked for corrosion on the contacts, nothing. The bulbs look fine, the side one I couldn't test (brother NEEDED the car... so my project of fixing it got sidetracked), but the front one is still good. Any how, are those two bulbs wired in series or something? I am thinking the side light is dead and is cutting off power to the front. The running light at the front has been pulsating for a while now, but has always worked (somewhat)... could it be the wiring too? The turn signal still works tho, so that is a good thing... Don't really NEED amber running lights, my headlamps come on at 80% or so brightness by default, with the rear lights anyways (Canadian car).
They are on the same circuit but not in series by default. Easiest fix in my case was to use an "accessory add-a-fuse" thing that piggy-backs on an existing fuse circuit (in this case, the right-side marker light circuit) and run an extra wire through one of the firewall grommets behind the pedal cluster and out to the lights...when I had started troubleshooting, I was only short the sidemarker; after I bumped the wires, I lost both...then I got the front back, then I lost both...etc. So instead of trying to re-do the wiring harness until I found a break I just ran another wire.
Might be a good time to check out the markerflash directions at
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(Dan Stern's site). (Excuse typos, lack of grammar, etc...I should really be sleeping.)
OK, I'm a little confused by your message, probably because once again I /should/ be sleeping (although it's only 11 pm now and not 2am) and because trying to describe VW circuits is hard enough in person...
Anyhow, there are four parking/marker lights on the front of an A2. There are two left-side lights, one in the bumper and one in the fender, and there are two passenger-side lights, one in the bumper and one in the fender. I'm gonna call the ones in the bumper "left-parking" and "right-parking" and the ones in the fenders "left-banana" and "right-banana" (since they're often referred to as banana lights).
Left-parking and left-banana are on the same circuit but, according to page 16-178 of the Bentley, are wired in parallel and not in series. It does refer to "left side marker lights, front" and "right side marker lights, front" but it shows "parking light, right" and "parking light, left" as distinct from those lights and wired in parallel. I'm assuming parking light==bumper light and marker "lights" [sic] == banana light. The following page shows the trail lamps as "Tail Light Left" and "...Right," so I can't see what the "side marker lights" would be unless it should be "light."
Anyhow, according to the Bentley (which matches what I recall seeing on both of my A2s), you've got one power wire coming from somewhere in the harness, hittting a welded wiring point in the harness, and splitting into two wires, each of which is grey/black. This setup is mirrored on both sides of the vehicle. Each of these grey/black wires then goes to a lamp and a brown wire goes from each lamp to ground. Grounds are common with the turn signals (i.e. there is one ground,
119 for the left-side and 120 for the right-side in the Bentley, and both 119 and 120 are "in headlight wiring harness."
So, the right-bumper and right-banana lamps are completely independent of the left-bumper and left-banana lamps, and the only commonality (electrically) with the turn signals is the ground. If you turn signals work fine, then I guess the grounds are OK. If your right-side lights don't work but your left-side lights do, then at least you know the switch is OK. The fuse is a separate fuse (one per side for all three marker lights), but the tail light for each side is on the same fuse as the front marker lights, so if you've got both tails, the fuses are good.
Now, if the right-bumper light is working and the right-banana isn't, and you've confirmed that you don't have voltage to the socket in the banana light, you probably want to make sure you've looked under the car at least as far as the clip-together plugs, which might still be held in place by the same piece of plastic for all three lamps (banana, bumper, and blinker). If you have cleaned those contacts and checked for visible wire damage but still have power to only one of the marker lamps on a side, then the easiest fix is probably to wire the two lamps in series.
(That's what I was planning on doing until I discovered that I had seriously intermittant wiring in general, so I ran the kludge-wire from the fuse panel and wired both marker lamps in parallel)
I had a little more "tinker time" with it today, since Ontario lost power, thus work was closed today. I determined that, as you stated they are wired in parallel. I checked the fuses (I had to buy a new one, I shorted the two close contacts in the side marker when I was in there with my DMM) and the fuses are good. I am getting power to my rear lights. I am getting power to the left hand side of the car, 12.21 Volts to be exact (car off, no alternator). The right hand side is only getting about 9.3 Volts... too bad I can't find the harness connectors. I can see molex plugs on the left side, they look okay (everything works so they must be)... but the right hand side is covered by the air intake box... I don't want to break anything removing it, I pulled it up a little, I don't think the wires are under it.
Do I have to go look at the connectors from undernear the car?
I am guessing that there is a burnt out connector, or a corrosion problem there, as the light was flickering between medium/low intensity (never full never off) for a long time...
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