Smoke From Dash This Morning

[woodsy 0]

Hi guys on my way to work today with girlfriend in my daily gti and next minute loads of smoke coming from passenger side by fuse box.She says should i get out (erm yeah good idea love haha), i jump out and disconnect battery.

 

There is 1 or 2 wires behind glovebox that have melted nicely and basically go to the green relay at rear bulkhead by expansion tank. Iam thinking the relay obviously the problem, am i right in saying this relay is either horn, sidelamps. The car is a J reg with just 1 green relay inside the black box thing.

 

I drove the car to my garage afterwards and wasnt a problem, at the time i had sidelamps on so havent tried them again since.

[woodsy 0]

Sorry forgot to say this ones a 1.6gti.Just been out to it and with the relay taken out the horn,sidelamps,headlamps work ok except the wiring needs attention later.

[Anthony 1,003]

Relay is for the dim-dip system as far as I know, which would make sense if the sidelights now don't work.

[woodsy 0]

Relay is for the dim-dip system as far as I know, which would make sense if the sidelights now don't work.

 

Thanks mate for reply, however the sidelight still works with the relay removed,strange.

[Anthony 1,003]

The dim-dip system runs the headlight bulbs at reduced brightness with the sidelights and ignition on.

 

I would expect the sidelights to continue to work fine with the dim-dip disabled with the relay removed.

 

Dim-dip resistor is usually clipped under the passenger headlight, and the wiring leading to and from that seems like a good starting point if the car is fine with the relay removed (since the relay controls the feed to the resistor). Don't muddle it up with the similar looking radiator fan resistor which often ends up floating around around the back of the passenger headlight when it's not been clipped back onto the radiator.

 

On a 1.9, the other relay is for the air horn, which obviously your 1.6 wouldn't have (hence just the one relay on yours)