Porsche 944 Turbo, 1988, front driving lights

[Guest]

Hi all

I just bought my first Porsche, a 1988 944 Turbo. Great motor - really moves, looks great, etc.

When I turn on the sidelights, I get the main lights popping up and the two outer lights under the bumper also go on. When I turn on the front fogs, the same two outer lights under the bumper get brigher, so must turn on a second bulb. What are the two inner lights under the bumper for? They don't illuminate with any headlight nor fog light setting.

I thought maybe a fuse was shot, but have checked all the fuses and everything is fine. I haven't yet gone as far as taking the light clusters out until somebody tells me I have to .... is it just shot bulbs, or do these lights do anything at all?

While I'm at it, I have the soaking wet carpets in the passenger side, checking all the drains tomorrow, but how do I get the carpets dry?

Thanks in advance
Paul

 

[John Sims]

Hi Paul and welcome to the forum.

Great choice of car, I hope you have many happy times together.

Lights:-

Start the engine - or put the ignition full on - and then put the lights on main beam. I think you will find that the extra lights come on then. []

Drying out carpets is a pain. They are glued in so I wouldn't try to get them out. You can:-

1st stop the leak so it doesn't get any wetter then...

a) Drive round lots with the air con on all the time.

b) Hire a dehumidifier and leave that running in the car for a few days.

c) Buy some crystal dehumidifying packs - I haven't tried these but saw them in Macro and thought they would be good for the money if they work.

d) Get a wetvac on the carpet and suck the water out.

e) Cover the carpet in newspaper held down with a weight and periodically change the paper.

f) Ignore it. It will dry out eventually.

Finally, don't get too upset over a wet foot well, it is a right of passage. We have all had them, welcome to the club. []

 

[Guest]

Cool. Sounds like nothing to get too worried over (carpets and leak).

As for the lights, I think I tried that, so that suggests to me the bulbs are shot. I'll take the lights out tomorrow and see what's what.

Thanks for the pointers.

Cheers,
Paul

 

[pal944]

Hi i used kitchen towel and then used a hair dryer, it did not take to long first i soaked up most of it with rhe kitchen towel then used the hair dryer to finish it off.

 

[Guest]

Good idea - I haven't been in the car today as it is still raining, so I'll check tomorrow when the rain has buggered off.

A day of getting down and dirty for me then ... []

 

[John Sims]

ORIGINAL: pvm_944Turbo

........... I'll take the lights out tomorrow and see what's what.....

Ha that's what you think. Welcome to the emotional roller coaster of 944 ownership. The odds on you getting the lamp units out without having to drill out the rusted bolts is pretty remote.....I'd almost put money on it.

Get spares from your OPC before you start. I'd even consider replacing the lights themselves, they look much nicer new. [] I believe German & Swedish will be the cheapest but others may be able to provide more info.

 

[924nutter]

My 944S lights were wired the same. The lights pop up, in the instrument binnacle the green parking lamps indicator innluminates. Headlamps come on with reduced intensity. Switching on the fog lights will illuminate the main lamp of the fog lamps, smothering the illuminaion of the 4w parking light lamp (bulbs grow in the garden) as the side light is incorporated into the fog light reflector. In the sort of fog I have experienced in the UK, I found the low intesity headlamps setting next to useless as the illumination from the fogs didn't compensate for the loss of projected light despit the reduction in back reflection.

Curiously my 944 cabriolet's headlights do not pop up on the first detent position.

 

[Indi9xx]

for a short while sometime around 1988, it was rumoured that a law would require the sidelights to be mounted in the main headlights.. meaning cars with pop up headlights would need to be raised and illuminated to conform to the rumoured law.

I think the law was just an EEC thing (rather than just another daft UK law)

Ferrari then leaped in feet first and stopped the law by pulling some strings.

The result was 88 and 89 cars in particular, just in case the law went ahead, pop up their headlights...

If you do not like the headlights popping up on sidelights, there is a really simple mod you can do which stops it happening. Which is something we do as an optional upgrade while installing either our relay kits or HID conversions.

 

[jackregan]

ORIGINAL: Indi9xx

for a short while sometime around 1988, it was rumoured that a law would require the sidelights to be mounted in the main headlights.. meaning cars with pop up headlights would need to be raised and illuminated to conform to the rumoured law.

I think the law was just an EEC thing (rather than just another daft UK law)

Ferrari then leaped in feet first and stopped the law by pulling some strings.

The result was 88 and 89 cars in particular, just in case the law went ahead, pop up their headlights...

If you do not like the headlights popping up on sidelights, there is a really simple mod you can do which stops it happening. Which is something we do as an optional upgrade while installing either our relay kits or HID conversions.

Thats nearly right, it was in fact part of the dim dip UK regs brought in actually by the uk after 1st april 1987, the requirement was to have the dip beam filament of the cars headlamps illuminated at 10 to 20% of the lamps normal intensity but only when the engine was running or key in AND the sidelights where on, or you could have daytime running lights conforming to some other nonsense directive.. The uk was the only country to adopt this, and the intention was for a not as bright as normal headlight for town centres to stop folk just driving on sidelights. In the case of the 944 this meant the pop ups had to come up for this. In 1988 the uk government was bizzarely prosecuted by the ec commision and the law was quashed on the grounds that dim dip was illegal under EC directives (how often does that happen)!

Some cars had it fitted well into the early nineties, such as rover and others, most folk remove it cause it looks naff as it looks like you have an earth fault! On most cars its just a simple case of removing the dim dip resisitor, problem solved!

Time for a cuppa, enough regs for one morning![]

 

[Indi9xx]

Well done Jack!

I knew it was some regulation which was then abandoned... I thought it was an EEC thing, because its the kind of thing they usually spending millions introducing only to later abandon quietly when no one is looking!

I get a lot of customers who love the way their cars look with the headlights down when they have their sidelights on, but on their cars the headlights pop up... So on quite a regular basis we find ourselves removing the dim dip control box and rewiring the bridge relay (super quick and easy job) to the headlights do not dim dip and they stay down on sidelights.

 

[Hilux]

So on quite a regular basis we find ourselves removing the dim dip control box and rewiring the bridge relay (super quick and easy job) to the headlights do not dim dip and they stay down on sidelights.

Go on then, gissa clue [] as its something I think I`d like to do as electrics are a black art to me................[8D]

 

[Fen]

Search, the instructions are on here at least twice.

 

[Indi9xx]

All it involves is pulling the connector on the cigarette packet sized relay/controller which is up to the right of the steering column under the dash....

Then pull the bridge/link relay, the relay which looks like it has been squashed to about 5mm thick and replace it with the "dont pop up the headlights" version... or use short sections of wire with spade connectors on the ends to bridge the right pins to the right other pins..

I am sure if you do a search you will find which pins to hook up to which pins, if not on monday I can pull notes from my desk and post them here.

 

[Hilux]

Search, the instructions are on here at least twice.

I didnt realise it was an old mod [&:] ...................took some finding but I believe I found a method (see below)

Jon, is this the mod you do? Where is relay G6? (makes mental note to get a workshop manual)

Well I don't know about you, but pods up with sidelights on seemed silly
to me (even if the headlamps were 'dim-dipped') so I thought I would do
something about it! Read the manual, electrical drawings etc and came up
with this solution. This is for cars with the dim-dip facility only, I
claim no knowledge of other variants! (should work anyway but just
clearing myself!)
1) Remove 'relay' G6, this is not actually a relay but a series of
links.
2) Remove the plug from the dim-dip unit. This will be found (in my '88
S anyway) above the accelerator pedal (right hand drive car) and is a
silver box roughly cigarette packet sized. The plug will have wires of
the following colours, Black/yellow, White, Yellow, Brown, and Grey.
3) Tape up the removed plug and tuck it away in the loom. The contacts
whilst shrouded will be live when light are on, so we want to take no
chances.
4) Make up 4 link wires from 1.5mm wire approx. 8 cm end to end
including crimps. Put a male spade type crimp (lucar) on each end.
5) Connect the sockets you removed G6 from as follows,
0 - 4
9 - 2
5 - 7
6 - 8

Your lamps will now remain down on the side light position with only the
side lights lit (you are able to turn fogs on too) and will raise when
you select position 2 for headlamps. They will go down only when the
switch is returned to 'OFF'. Dip/main remains unchanged as does the
operation of the 'parking lights' and the dash indication of sidelights
and main beam is also unaffected.

Incidentally my G6 relay was part number:- 944 610 183 08

Hope this is of help to some people,
Jonathan
944S & 911SSE

 

[John Sims]

Well after three years of going to I have finally modified Beaky's lights so they don't come up on position 1. []

Belinda will tell you that 3 years is a relatively quick turn round on the "jobs to do" list.

Not the tidiest solution. I was going to modify the plug thing that came out but unfortunately it is missing one of the pins I need. Pin 4 I think.

 

[Diver944]

That looks like the alien wormole machine in 'Contact' with Jodie Foster that was on telly the other night.

Personally I like having my popups on the Turbo come up dimmed with sidelights.

Is there a mod to make it happen on my S2 as well [8|] they currently stay down until poistion 2 as it's a later car

 

[andymorris]

Gentlemen well we are on the subject of headlights - On my S2 randomly they refuse to dip after they have been on full beam any ideas what the cause may be ?

 

[John Sims]

ORIGINAL: Diver944

Personally I like having my popups on the Turbo come up dimmed with sidelights.

I couldn't use mine on sidelights as the dim dip played havoc with the Iceshark relays.

The new system is much better and also means I can keep the lamp pods down with fogs on for track days......you hadn't thought of that had you Mr Smith. []

I should have done it years ago.

 

[John Sims]

ORIGINAL: andymorris

Gentlemen well we are on the subject of headlights - On my S2 randomly they refuse to dip after they have been on full beam any ideas what the cause may be ?

I've had the same problem. Rather embarrassingly when Beaky was on display at Eyensham - but I did manage to cure it.

The headlamp raising and lowering is a right pain as it uses two circuits. One to raise the lamps and one to lower them. There are two fuses in the fuse box (10 & 22 I think but could be wrong) The lowering circuit is constantly live - if you try to manually raise the pods with the fuse in it will have your fingers off. []

From what I can make out, the switching between up and down current is controlled by two switch tracks in the motor. There is a relay on the motor which I replaced - cost £35 IIRC. This made no difference what so ever.

To cure? I guess replace or refurbish the motor. Beakys are working again currently. They seem to go down by themselves if you start to lower the manually, so it is probably a burnt or grubby spot on the contact path.

 

[DivineE]

Or were you asking about lights not switching back to dip beam from main beam? If so that will be either a grubby earth or fractures in the wires where they bend as the light goes up and down. Jon told me this happens because if the dip beam earth fails then it earths through the main beam! On my car and it was an easy fix.

1. Clean the earths with a wire brush, wire wool or similar. If that doesn't work...

2. turn the headlights onto dip beam then do lots of wiggling and bending of the wires behind the headlights on both sides, when the lights suddenly come on full beam for no reason you will know that there is a break in the wire. Cut the wires strip them back, add waterproof conectors and a new bit of wire. Job done!

Just in case thats what you were asking.