Earth shunt or something else?

[Klemenzi]

Hello,

Recently I bought a silver Comfortline Cali 2006 

After a few days of pure joy I noticed that interior lights are not working and one light is just flickering. During my first camping weekend I also noticed that fridge and heating have also some issues (they stopped working after some time…)
I was 99.9% sure that I am dealing with a known issue with earth shunt. After contacting several VW dealers in Slovenia I found out that they had no idea of what I was talking about. One dealer even admitted that VW sold only 5 Calies in Slovenia so far…so no help from VW I said to myself 

I decided to fix earth shunt by myself (many thanks for posting repair instructions). However when I finished with earth shunt fixing, lights were still not working. So I started with measurements, first thing that I noticed was that there was actually no voltage on light connectors except 7V on the one that was flickering. I measured resistance and all cables look OK. Voltage measurements under driver’s seat around the fuse box were also OK except I noticed that red/green cable (the one that goes to every light) has some issues. Voltage between fuse box and battery is 12V but when I measure voltage on the same cable between light and the battery there is only 7V. So in my opinion I have a problem with a bad connection or installation between battery and cupboard. Now I have no idea where to start digging…

Did anyone experienced the same problem before? Any ideas where to troubleshoot, electrical scheme would be highly appreciated.

Many thanks,
Klemen

 

[Andresz]

Try to tighten all the nuts and bolts on both batteries, plus and minus terminals. especially under the seat where plus terminal has several cables (bolts) to be tightened. But tighten everything.
Also on the battery in the cupboard, on plus terminal, there is little, square 30Amps, fuse, this one might get rusty and lost connection.
Could be batteries themselves, do they have decent 12 volt under load ?

Regards
Andrzej

 

[Klemenzi]

Hi Andrzej,

Thank you for your response.
Batteries are OK in my opinion, and I have already cleaned and tighten everything connected to the batteries. Will check 30Amps fuse though.

Cheers,
Klemen

 

[Andresz]

In fact, I think it is more than 30amps, it is 50 or 60, anyway the recommendation is to replace it to 75amps:

http://www.vwcamper.de/shop/product....html/XTCsid/c9252134bb284e0b6a6b63b0282949a7

 

[sidepod]

Run a short length of wire between the outgoing side of the fuse and the light unit, effectively bypassing the section you have a reduced voltage on. If the lights function correctly then your problem is that part of the loom and you can investigate further.

S

 

[Klemenzi]

Hi S,

It’s exactly what I did yesterday, I bypassed the section between the fuse and lights and all was working OK.
My suspicion now is that + cable (for interior lights) from the fuse box is going up into the roof section and there is most probably broken into six cables that go to all interior lights.
Now the biggest question is, where cables are broken into six, I really hate pulling down plastic cause you just never know what is going to break…

More work for today’s afternoon 

Many thanks,
Klemen

 

[Andresz]

when you did the bypass, also the heating and fridge started to work correctly or the light only ?
I think the voltage gets lose somewhere before the plus is splitted onto 6 lamps, if you excluded the square fuse, it might be somewhere on the level of the battery charging/distribution unit,