AW70: overdrive off light always on

Oct 14, 2006 6 Replies
S

Hello,



I have a 1990 Volvo 240 with AW70. I've owned the car since last summer and today I was replacing some of the last failed bulbs which had been in that state already when I bought the car.



I was slightly surprised to find that the "overdrive off" indicator light on the metre console is always lit iff the engine is running (as far as I remember, I'll have to ascertain this). The "overdrive off" indicator flickers when the engine is idling but the flicker quickly vanishes when acceleration pedal is pressed.



Yet overdrive still works fine, including the button for enabling or disabling it. I'm pretty sure of this since the effect of disabling overdrive at 100 km/h (about 62 mph) is very noticeable. Whether overdrive is enabled or disabled does not seem to have any effect on the indicator.



So, my question is: is someone able to guess what could cause the described symptom? Obviously it's not the famous oxidised fuse contacts since that would prevent overdrive from working altogether.



Regards,


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M

There's a yellow-red wire that goes from the overdrive relay to a connection right beside the light. I'd have a look at how you reinstalled that on the cluster.

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S

Hm. I actually didn't disconnect any wires when changing the bulbs. But someone else has done it in the past --- the speedometer has been replaced 67 000 km ago. I'll check the colour of that wire. And maybe also the wires connected to the overdrive relay.

Thanks.

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J

Is the overdrive working? It's possible the relay failed by conincidence.

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S

Yes. So the problem is that the indicator doesn't work correctly. :]

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J

It still wouldn't hurt to try tapping the relay or resoldering it, as I recall the indicator wires straight to that. Another possibility is that the wiring harness behind the instrument cluster has chafed on something.

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S

Overdrive relay is fine --- I checked it with a multimeter. But it appears that the rpm meter wire (red-white) had been connected to overdrive indicator. Interesting wiring choice from the earlier owner... ;-)

Thanks to everyone for help.

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