Electrical problem

Hey, im testing all the lights, everything works . But when i turn my headlights on, one of my indicators at the rear wont work. I pulled the tailight off and there is a small black wire that isnt attached anywhere and doesnt go anywhere either. Im guessing an extra earth wire. Anyone know how i can fix it?

It depends on what year but most Bugs used the bodywork as the earth path and didn't have a separate earth wire. Earth wires would be brown. That black is either a stop light, if it has a red tracer on it, or for a reverse light.

Give the earth contacts of the bulb reflector to housing and housing screws to wing areas a clean. To quickly ensure it is an earth problem you can run a wire from the reflector mount screw to say a bumper bracket bolt. If you still have the problem after that then it a problem with the wiring.

When you say wire is not attached anywhere ,is that both ends or just one end ?

Regards Paul

Psimitar you were right, i ran the wire as an earth and its now working. Thank you for your help.
Southspark yeah the wire wasnt attached to anything at either end ran from the taillight to the engine bay. Seemed odd

VWBoothy wrote:Psimitar you were right, i ran the wire as an earth and its now working. Thank you for your help.
Southspark yeah the wire wasnt attached to anything at either end ran from the taillight to the engine bay. Seemed odd

Reverse light used a localised fuse in the engine bay to run to the gearbox and then to the taillights. Pretty sure it was just a black wire.
As I said a black wire is normally a live wire in VW looms. Red is perm live and black is ign live. Brown is earth.

You don't have glass guards by any chance do you?