Itinerant Air-Cooled

So in the process of extracting engine from Gretchen Ghia, we took the engine bay lid off, which meant snipping the wire to the license plate lights. We obviously only snipped one wire, but where does the second one go? Does it just ground to the body? Both wires obviously go somewhere, as they are sheathed together, yet on the light bulb assemblies, there is only a single spade to connect a wire, which still has the stub end connected of the wire we snipped.

Just ground it to one of the assembly mounting screws?



neal

It's a ground. Attach it wherever it best, well, grounds the light.

On the nose DjEep. Thanks for the confirmation. Rigging something to keep the hot start assembly off the CV boots, and heading into town for a bit more of the break-in process. Yee-haw!


neal

ruckman101 wrote:So in the process of extracting engine from Gretchen Ghia, we took the engine bay lid off, which meant snipping the wire to the license plate lights. We obviously only snipped one wire, but where does the second one go? Does it just ground to the body? Both wires obviously go somewhere, as they are sheathed together, yet on the light bulb assemblies, there is only a single spade to connect a wire, which still has the stub end connected of the wire we snipped.

Just ground it to one of the assembly mounting screws?



neal

yes, it grounds to the tail light assembly. If you want I can take mine apart to verify exactly where.

ruckman101 wrote:we took the engine bay lid off, which meant snipping the wire to the license plate lights.

Why not just disconnect at the connector plug? The factory was well-aware of the need to remove deck lids.All bugs, Karmann Ghias, Fastbacks, Notchbacks, had a white (turns amber to black over time) connector in the wiring past the hinges . . .
Colin

No connector plug there. Bentley shows one in the wiring schematic, but none on the car.


neal

none in my 70, just a taped up splice.

Bleyseng wrote:none in my 70, just a taped up splice.

Savages, the lot of you . . .
Colin

Previous owner would be the savages in my case. I'll look into setting up a connection box, because no doubt, that lid will be coming off again at some point.


neal

yeah, but that's the way it came. The VW wiring diagram doesn't show a connector but I'll add one in as soon as I can locate one in the stash.
Stupid headlight switch failed on the way home the other night for no reason. No lights, nice to drive at night with only parking lights.

Doh! Forgot to ask today when I was in town. I like those connectors. Dealt with a mess of them when the ignition/key bit failure led into new territory that could have been dealt with more eloquently than my current hot start button keyless bypass solution.

When my lights went out it was the starter. I made it home, but starter was silent once I quit running. I farmed that task out at the time. That starter lasted almost ten years.

I am an old codger, aren't I. Dang it.

Eh, not that codgerly yet. Ptui on youse. Apex, done, birthday gone.



neal