Hello all,

Fair warning, I am a bit of a greenhorn with cars, and I have just been learning as I go.

So last night I've encountered easily my least favorite of every problem I have had with my car. I drive a 1985 Volvo 245 with the naturally aspirated B230F. I'll describe it just as it happened. Last night, I drove into my driveway in the torrential rain, and my belts just started screaming. Simultaneously, smoke started to fill the cabin and come out from the hood. Today, after more torrential rain, I went to look and see what the problem was. So the screaming belts came from my waterpump, that tossed coolant all over the inside of the engine bay. A good amount of green spray could be found everywhere, so I cleaned it all up. That is item one for repair, already bought that part. The second, and more complicated issue is more grave. So I don't know if the coolant spray caused a short, but all of the wires coming from my left (driver side) headlights cooked entirely. They must have gotten so hot that they ate straight through the rubber/plastic coating, all the way back to the headlight relay near the power steering reservoir.

I think it may be in part my fault. The high beam lamps are aircraft landing lights installed by the mechanic I bought it from. They work great, and I have never had an issue with them, but last week a rock punched a hole in the left one, so I had to take it out to get the part number to order another. It is possible that the wires, which I left unattached when I replaced the light to keep the hole filled, touched. If they touched, they might have caused this issue with the harness frying. The car will not start, however. It turns over, all of the electrics in the cabin work (lights, stereo, door chime, dash lights, OD relay button, cig lighter etc.). Could this be due to the failed water pump? Furthermore, why would the water pump and the frying wires happen at the same time? Is it the shorting as I suspected?

Most importantly however, I need to replace these wires, and I just cannot find any semblance of the part online. What I need essentially, is a wiring harness piece that fits, that I can finagle to fit the two lights and the line to the relay exclusively, and modify to fit the aircraft landing light I have. I may need a new relay too, considering what happened to the wires leading right up to it. The wires on the right side of the car appear to be fine, and also the main harness going from the relay back to the car looks okay. To the point, I need to find a harness, and I don't know if they are one in the same for all 240's or redblocks. My research indicates that they are not. They updated the wiring for the 240 headlights around when they changed from the 2 rectangular, or 2 circular lights, to the single block headlights. I'm having trouble finding a parts car anywhere near me, or in junkyards.

Any insight would be terrific. I will post some images below.

Cheers,
Lawrence

 

offhand, I'd think you'll be making your own wiring harness. be sure to use automotive grade wiring

and yeah, double round light 240's are pretty darn scarce these days. many of them have suffered from total catastrophic wiring system failure as that was in the middle of the 'biodegradable harness' era.

 

Are the connectors the same from a later year model? Could I swap pieces over from a more common car with the two front bricks?

 

I believe round headlights are wired like the top diagram here... the highbeam only outer lamps have the same 3-pin connector, and just don't use the low beam pin




I believe these sockets will work.

again, use marine or auto grade wiring, and waterproof your splices, it gets wet under the hood in wet weather (I use marine shrink wrap over soldered connections, or marine crimp connectors)

on your car wiring, red is high beam (goes to both bulbs), blue is low beam (inner bulb only), and black is ground. those connectors I linked, you'll need to sort out which color goes where (from the picture, it looks like blue is ground, yellow is high, red is low... but verify verify verify!)

 

Thank you greatly pierce, I have learned similar information since my last post. That is indeed the connector orientation for this car. I am sorting out which wires go where. Looks like the red one ( the high beam) cooked all the way to the relay. The blue one just cooked to the low beam light. I agree though, there is only sense in making the harness, the volvo dealer near me said there is no such thing as replacements for anything but the relay itself anymore. Right now, I am pealing back that jacket that goes around the wiring, and separating the horn (black and white) and the marker light (yellow and green).

Good news is, the car started. It might have just been a fluke. The water pump was purchased from FCP, right in my hometown, so I'm good to go with that. Thank you for that last post though, I'll be buying that fastener too.