Reverse Light Woes

[flying_violin]

I have been having some issues with my reverse lights. When I bought the car (318is) in January, the reverse lights worked fine. Then, they stop working and take half the dash cluster with them, so I figured that it was just a short in the wiring. When I looked under the shift boot, I found that the reverse light wires coming up from underneath the car were chaffed and shorting on the floorpan metal. A little electrical tape should have solved that problem, though.

Upon replacing the fuse, all the dash gauges were once again alive, so I figured the problem was fixed! But then tonight I was driving along, and got pulled over for having my reverse lights on while driving down the highway... Oops! So I will take a look at everything tomorrow, but if anyone has any suggestions, they would be much appreciated.

Thanks!

[Goya20]

i had the same problem on my eta, you goin to have to check under the car where the shift linkage is at and the wire may have been severed. I taped it up and it worked fine. i recommend to electrical tape the entire wire to have a piece of mind.

[AndrewBird]

My guess is the part that was worn was worn enough for the wires to touch. When you taped it, you basically connected the wires together, turning on your reverse lights.

[flying_violin]

Well, I found the problem. It will take a sharp eye to spot the tiny defect in the wiring harness, but here is a picture of it:



It looks like because the wire was not clipped into place above the trans and driveshaft, it fell into the spinning doom below it! Anyway, I removed the two ends from the car and made them look like this:



Lots of solder and electrical tape to make sure that it remains mostly maintenance free, and then I reinstalled the harness. Now my reverse lights work fine!

[HippyEarly]

gotta love free fixes