Smokin 64 Beetle

Hi All, I've just purchased a 64 Beetle and need some wiring done. When I turn the lights on wires start to smoke and get a little hot. I'll put up a slab for your help or I'll even part with the stuff that folds...if I must. Anyway, if you're in Melb and can give a fellow new bugger a hand that would be great. Give me a buzz or PM me if you can help. Thanks everyone Dom 0418 133 580

get someone to turn the ting on while u watch and try and find the point where smoke starts and make sure all open joiners are taped and there are no shorts
good luck

Looks like a artisan wired it, you will need a wiring diagram so you can trace the wiring and see what works and what does not.

Boy, that's a mess!
I like the shot of the workshop through the dash.
This is no job for a beginner methinks.
Someone with a few wiring skills should be able to do a basic tidy up fairly quickly.

Needs a major re think that wiring,

It's not too difficult, but takes time and patience

Lucky Phil wrote:Boy, that's a mess!
I like the shot of the workshop through the dash.
This is no job for a beginner methinks.
Someone with a few wiring skills should be able to do a basic tidy up fairly quickly.

Perfectly planned shot of the workbench. I've managed to pull down the mess this was the wiring and label everything...my way. I can now see the light thru the fog and isolated the main wiring harness, which should make life a little easier. I think I'll start with the lights and work my way to the ignition.

The melted wire was an ignition wire. Looked very thin. So I replace that with a properly rated wire.

Can some one tell what the white thing is with wires connected to it? It looks like an old house fuse with wiring from the wiper switch going directly into it.

That white thing isn't connected to the wiper switch. There's a thick RED wire coming out of it and going straight to the fuse box and back into the ignition switch

The white things are ballast resistors. They drop the nominal battery voltage down to approximately half its value. They use resistors in older VW's so you can still run a 6 volt wiper motor but use a 12 volt battery system.

Cheers

Jason

Was the car working with the wiring like that? Looks like a very special person put that in :-)

No wonder you were getting dead shorts, alot of live uninsulated connectors there.


Charge light socket laying there loose with no bulb would have been playing games with the charging system too.

ducati998 wrote:The white things are ballast resistors. They drop the nominal battery voltage down to approximately half its value. They use resistors in older VW's so you can still run a 6 volt wiper motor but use a 12 volt battery system.

Cheers

Jason

Jason, would you recommend replacing the 6v wiper motor with a 12v motor to keep voltage consistant across the car. Or leave it as is?

few options with the wipers. new 12v armature can go in the motor itself, or new style reistors/voltage drop units are readily available (drop power from 12 to 6 to the wiper motor)

that wiring looks better already 😉

my light switch used to smoke when wired incorrectly.

Particularly smoke when i would adjust the dimmer. i had the headlights on the dimmer side, and the dimmer on the headlights wire...

So all in all, i had adjustable dimming headlights lol.

hellbugged wrote:few options with the wipers. new 12v armature can go in the motor itself, or new style reistors/voltage drop units are readily available (drop power from 12 to 6 to the wiper motor)

that wiring looks better already 😉

I've seen new 12v armatures being installed on youtube. I think i might go down that path. Cheers

64blackbettle wrote:

hellbugged wrote:few options with the wipers. new 12v armature can go in the motor itself, or new style reistors/voltage drop units are readily available (drop power from 12 to 6 to the wiper motor)

that wiring looks better already 😉

I've seen new 12v armatures being installed on youtube. I think i might go down that path. Cheers

Installing a 12v armature eliminates the need for resistors.
Which means less connections in the circuit.
Which means less chances of problems.
So it's got to be better. 😂

ClockworkMonkey wrote:Was the car working with the wiring like that? Looks like a very special person put that in :-)

It was working OK, but things started to go smokiel when I switched the lights on

If your not worried about originality you could always fit a later 12 volt beetle wiper motor and switch.

Atleast then you would get 2 speeds and not have to deal with those crappy light weight 6 volt wiper arms anymore.

The 12v option sounds like the way to go. Where's the best place to pick one up from?

The wiring is at least now organised into logical groups. The main loom top right, and the bottom left is for the lights. Now I just need to add the bits in the middle and I'm done....I hope.

I'll head over to the Auto Elec this weekend and pick up the right sort of wires for the job and some advice and I'll give it a crack at some stage.