QuestionHi again,
I surrender! This is too much for me. I am really into material science and not electrical stuff.
I will try to get the car to the garage next week. They will probably just plug in some magic cable and sort out the problem within some minutes. I hope it is not the computer but I feel I need to be prepared for that. If you would like to know the outcome please let me know.
If not thanks a lot for all your effort and support. I am very impressed by your prompt reply and honest concern.
Many thanks ! / Patrik
-------------------------
Followup To
Question -
Hi Roland,
Now I been out making measurements and I am now more confused than ever.
The relay has one (+) and an opposite "ground" this is I assume the correct circut for the head lamps and the circut I close to get light. One of the other contact also show (+) but the opposite is not ground when I turn the pod switch. I guess this would be the circuit that activated the relay ?
Consequently, the problem is before the relay. Now to the things that made me totally confused. The plug I have on the pod switch consit of two rows with each 4 contacts.
The cables on the upper row are (from left to right)
empty , green/orange, brownish, orange/white
The cables on the lower row are (from left to right)
green/white, green, black, brown/yellow
Now I measured the potential over the contacts and ground and found that the only positive were the green/orange on the upper row and the green/white on the lower road. BUT, they both showed a potential of 10,2V ? All others cables were grounded ? (also 10,2V compared to the green/orange). The battery and over the relay I have 12,5V so the battery is OK.
There must be some component before the pod switch that fails to supply it with power.
Do you think is worth to continue to struggle with this or should I drive it to a garage ?
Best regards / Patrik
PS: My optical horn works !
PPS: I have used another program to publish the picture please have a look at the same address again if you want (i.e. http://web.telia.com/~u29009373)
DS
-------------------------
Followup To
Question -
Hello again,
I belive the pod switch I have has the 12+2 configuration and the relay seems to have 5 pins. I have not yet been able to re-open the dashboard to look at the colours of the cables but I do not think there was any orange white at all? I will make some more investigations tomorrow. I have taken some picture of the actual pod switch and how I succeded to override the relay and get light (shown with a red line) these pictures I put on the web address;
http://web.telia.com/~u29009373
If I make measurements on the relay socket I find that nothing will change when I change the pod switch. Therfore the problem is before the relay. However I now start to think it is even before the pod switch. It seems that I get some (+) coming into the swithch but not "the (+) I need" to get the head lights to work. Could this be the case ?
Many thanks again for your prompt reply.
Best regards / Patrik Olund
-------------------------
Followup To
Question -
Hello again Roland,
Many thanks for your reply. However, I have still not solved the problem. First of all I must admit that my car:
a) is a van
b) was manufactured in Austria !
c) was sold in Germany
d) was privetly imported to Sweden
e) was bought by me
I think it looks identical to Chrysler Town & Country and also some Dodge varants I saw on my last trip to the States less than a year ago. But I guess the european production could confuse things anyway ? However, many electrical components in my car seems to be "made in Mexico" I expect that will be the same in a car made in the US.
I liked your idea that I might have a ground problem with the pod switch but I could not identify the sockets close to the steering column. Neither the ground at the kick panel. Perhaps this is because it is a European van. So, I dismounted the entire switch (not very simple) and started to both measeure the resistance in the switch (seems OK) and ground the different connectors. I do have (+) power into the swith but cannot get the light working when I ground the different incoming cables. I only get the "pling" alarm telling me that the light is on without the engines running (false alarm!). The fuses down under the dash are all OK.
If i short-circut the relay in the power distribution centre I get the headlight working (this is how I move around in the darkness nowadays) so the problem is somewhere between the pod switch and this relay (actual relay is OK since I switched it with others that I know works). So I wonder if there might be some other strange relay in-between that has given up ? The internal lights behave a bit strange. Sometimes they can be controlled by the pod swithch and sometimes not. On some occations they get dark (doors open for too long time) and you hear a clear relay "click". After that the lights do not work again even if I close and reopen the doors. What relay is that and could that in some way interfer with everything ?
If not I guess it must be the computer and I am bound to turn the car into the garage. However, it is only the light that is not working after the polarity incident everything else starting, gearbox, meters etc works excellent. I personally would expect more mess if the computer is affected.
Best regards / Patrik
-------------------------
Followup To
Question -
Hi,
I have a european made Chrysler Voyager 3,3 LX - 1998. The problem is that the headlight, parking light, fog light and light inside the care does not work. The problem stated when the car needed to be started with cables. Unfortunately, some connected wrong poles on thw battery which, I guess, destroyed a relay or something ?.
I have checked all fuses (all I found) and also the relays in the box beside the battery.
A funny thing is that the lights inside the car can be started by pressing them but not controlled by the switches left of the steering wheel. I therefore strongly suspect that the problem is assosiated close to this panel.
Do you have a clue of what the problem can be.
Best regards / Patrik
Answer -
Hello again Patrik,
I know you found the fuses in the power distribution center but thought I would mention the fuse box under the dash as another place to look in case you hadn't seen it. And for those steering column wiring tests, just unplug the various colored 7 pin plugs I spoke of and jumper between the sockets for the listed wires (e.g. just by-pass the pod switch to see if you can get things going that way which would test whether your switch has been damaged).
Roland
Hi Patrik,
Is your vehicle a van (it sounds like it is) and I assume too that it was made in the U.S. or Canada and imported to Europe? Unfortunately I don't have specific wiring diagrams for any van later than '91 but these wiring designs tend to last for quite a few years. The approach to the headlamp/interior lamp design is that all the bulbs have a + voltage supply to them (or relays in the case of the headlamp and parking lamps) and then the pod switch merely closes the circuits by providing as chosen a ground path return for each of these systems. So if they all fail, the switch or the ground wire could have been damaged in the reverse polarity experience. I believe it would be safe for example to ground the brown/orange wire for the parking lamps or the orange/white wire for the headlamps (both of these are on a 7 pin blue connector at the steering column) because that is what the pod switch is supposed to do. If that didn't cause the lamps in question to come on, then I would suspect the relays (parking, low beam respectively) were bad*. If the lights do work with a temoporary ground of those wires, then I would check that the black wires on the gray connector and the black connector at the steering column are indeed grounded because those black wires are supposed to provide a return path to the battery via a body ground at the left side kick panel (the panel that is next to the driver's left shin, unless this is a right hand drive can in which case it could be the panel next to the driver's right shin). If those grounds seem to be in place, then the pod switch may have been damaged such as to not effect the desired grounding action.
*I note that the relays do contain one diode each, which might have been blown as the result of reverse polarity being applied during the jump. The other polarity sensitive devices are the body computer, the engine computer, and the vehicle theft module which contain solid state devices that might similarly be damaged, but I don't see that those are directly involved in the head lamp or parking lamp functions. Thus I suspect the relays first. Those are much cheaper than the computers so lets hope that is what went wrong.
Other then the lights, does the vehicle run ok? I am not surprised that the interior lights would work via local switches because as I said they have + supplied to them and all the local switch does is ground the other end of each filament.
So let me know if this makes any sense or not.
Roland
Answer -
Thanks for the clear explanation. I now realize that the three different plugs I described from the '91 diagrams were actually at the pod switch, not the column below. If yours has three 7 pin plugs then that is what my wiring diagrams show. A little later that pod switch design perhaps was changed to have a 12 + 2 arrangement (at least that is the case for the car models) Which do you
have? In either case, the orange/white wire at the pod switch comes from the activating coil of the headlamp relay and so if you are grounding that color wire at the relay then you are doing what the pod switch is supposed to do when you turn on the headlamps. Nothing other than the wire is between the relay and the pod. So then the reason has to be that the ground wire from the pod is not actually grounded or the switch contacts between the orange/white and the ground wire inside the switch are not making contact or oxidized so as to not make contact. The ground wires on the 3 x 7 set up is black, and on the 12+2 is black/orange. The relay will have 4 pins for the 3 x 7 and 5 pins for the 12 + 2. Let me know which pod switch you have and where you are grounding the relay to get the lights and maybe I can figure out why the pod won't do it. I wish I had a van diagram from a later year than '91.
Roland
Answer -
Hi Patrik,
I took a shot at the getting the photos, but it required downloading a couple of programs and that always 'throws" me. Because I haven't ever seen the inside of a van electronics set-up I might not get much from looking anyway. But thanks for taking the trouble to take a picture and post it.
I'll await your inspection of the pod switch for wire colors. Let me say though that based on the wiring diagrams for '92-94 in the cars the basic idea is that the headlamp switch's main function is to ground "hot" circuits (such as the downstream end of a relay coil that is connected to the battery all the time, it doesn't really have any 12V from the battery going to it. If you put a voltmeter on most of its pins they will read 12V but they are on a "hot" circuit that is not grounded at that moment). That is how the headlamp relay is set up. The actuating coil has always got 12V (via red/white wire =40 amp fuse supply from the power distribution center) on one end and it is awaiting to get a ground on the other to activate the relay switch. The relay's switch sends the same red/white wire's 12V source to the high/low and 'optical horn' switch which is part of the multifunction switch (turn signal, emergency flasher/ hi-lo) and then that switch sends the current thru some 10 amp fuses to the selected headlamps. Now, the headlamp relay is not really an on-off switch, but rather a switch which when activated sends current to the high/low switch and when not activated sends current to the 'optical horn' function of that same switch (so you can flash the high beams when you don't have the headlights on). So I hope this little discussion of theory helps you in resolving this. Did you also lose the "optical horn" or is it still operable?
I thought of another component that might have been damaged in the reverse polarity jump. Do you have a daytime running light set up on the car? There is a separate module for that as well and I am wondering if it could have been damaged. The circuit is cryptic as to what is inside of that box so who knows. Then there is always or old friend the body computer.
Anyhow, if you can tell me exactly what color wire and at what location you are grounding it get back some headlamps I might be able to figure out what is wrong.
Roland
P.S. We have to keep in mind that I don't have the van diagrams from 1999 which may be making all this effort for naught. But the fact that you can get headlamps suggests that all we have to figure out is what component you are replicating with your by-pass jumper.
Answer -
Hi Patrik,
I looked at the pictures and while they are very high quality they don't correspond to any of the wiring diagrams or component layouts that I happen to possess. But using the '91 van diagrams I can perhaps offer some suggestions:
The optical horn is supplied directly from the battery via a circuit breaker (25 amp) on the same light green/white wire that you measured to have 10.2 V. I can't understand why it should have a 2V "drop" unless you are using a low impedence voltmeter which might share the voltage. Does the optical horn light appear to be as bright as you would expect it to be?
I suspect that the same light green/white wire circuit will be found at the headlamp relay because that should be switched (when the relay is activated) to a light green wire that goes to the dimmer switch that then provides the power to the low and high beam headlamps. So take a look at the wire colors on the socket for the headlamp relay and if there are two light green/white wires on two separate posts, those both should have the 10.2V on them also. The other two posts at the relay should be supplied with a light green wire and an orange/white wire respectively. If you jump to ground from the orange/white wire the relay should click and the 10.2V should now also be found on the light green wire's post.
If there are not these wire assignments on the headlamp relay then I am in the dark (excuse the pun) about this circuit, and ignore my proposal as to what to do. If those are the wire colors and if the relay doesn't click when you ground the orange/white post then the relay is bad.
So let me know if this is of any help at all. I wish I had a manual for a model year closer to your '99, but I have avoided getting into the issues of trucks and vans beyond my commitment to have a modicum of expertise on FWD cars. I am sure you understand the amount of books and experience one would need to cover all the lines and years of Chrysler.
Let me know if this has helped.
Without the specific wiring diagrams it is very hard to troubleshoot your problem. So if I haven't given you anything to work with here, I am afraid you either have to find a shop that has a manual/experience or alternatively look for a shop manual from Chrysler to buy. If you have a Chrysler dealer there you could check on the availability of a manual for your car. I can't be sure that one published for the U.S. market will accurately describe you vehicle made in Austria. 'Voyager' model was formerly assigned to the Plymouth van line, but Chrysler dropped that veteran line maybe around 1999 or 2000. So I don't think I would find a Chyrsler Voyager manual here in the U.S.
Regards,
Roland
AnswerSure, Patrik, let me know what turns out to be the problem. Another possibility is to get a used '99 or thereabout van shop manual set on eBay. I suspect the European will not be too different from the American version. If you see one that has a fair price but the seller won't ship to Europe, let me know and I'll get it and ship it to you. I can even read the wiring diagrams promptly and let you know what is going on.
Roland
