Hello from a new 59k 505S Turbodiesel owner! Fuse box/electrical Q's...

[todds]

Hi Pug Lovers, I just wanted to introduce myself to the forum here as I've acquired a 1981 505S Turbodiesel, potentially a silver edition as it seems to have all the gear.  I've attached a few photos in the as-found condition after a decent wash and general cleanup.  It has 59k miles on it and was originally a san diego area car, the next card in the maintenance book was for 60k so I guess they kept up with it!  There are, of course, a few problems to address but for starters here's the car in my driveway:

I haven't had a car with round headlights in a while!

Almost looks a little Jaguar-ish with the US lights

Driving thru Boston traffic on the way back home to Cambridge

Interesting stable-mate parked next to my house...  Think he wants to race? 

Nice interior after almost 40 years!

Clock ticks, IF I wire it direct... (more about that later)

I have over twice that mileage on my daily driver, all the guages are working and accurate

Thanks for having a look,

           

    ^/<>/>/>

Cambridge, MA

[Bean]

Fantastic find Todd - And welcome to the forum!

The early series 1 505 TD cars are pretty great.  I used to and still kinda prefer the the later interiors in 86+ cars, but the simplicity and clean design of the early cars is growing on me a LOT.  And 60K on it makes it barely broken in in - some would argue it hasn't been... 

What are your plans for it going forward?

Rabin

 

 

[todds]

Thanks, 

My plans are to use it as an occasional car (I have a daily driver already).  The problems I'm discovering are mostly electrical in nature.  It's interesting as my owner's manual seems to be for a gas car even though it's the correct year.  It has pictures of an older style of fusebox with bayonet style fuses and wiring that makes no sense in light of my car, for instance it refers to things like lambda sensors and other items a diesel wouldn't have.  The #'s simply don't match up.  My car instead has a newer blade style fuse holder with #'s 1 to 14.  

I sure could use a diesel wiring diagram or owner's manual fuse box diagram!  Mine is an 81 but any year would help shed light at this point.

The problems: My clock works great when I hook it up to 12V, keeps great time, however not when plugged into it's place in the car.  Other things nearby that don't work: Cigarette Lighter, Hazard lights, Dome light, Key light, Turn Signals work correctly outside the car but the indicators in the dash flash both at once instead of individually (is this normal?)

The radio *sort* of wants to work but doesn't, turns on, you can hear the speakers hiss and radio lights come on, AM/FM switch works but the digital display for the station is off and tuning doesn't seem to do anything.  Probably a different issue than the above.

I dug around in my fuse box today, pulled it out and found this:

Not sure if you can see but the circuit board track that runs under the middle bottom row of fuses is burnt out, it runs from the 23 Brown wire to the 10 Brown wire on the other side, through the #5 fuse, which was blown, and then to the large 1A brown wire underneath, which I'm guessing is some sort of always hot type lead.  My theory is that this is the circuit for the stuff that doesn't work (above) including the clock, as I saw that 23 Brown wire appears to do that on a later gas wiring diagram I have for an '85.

I tried drawi ng up my own crappy version of *my* fuse box and wiring here: 

Please excuse the typing, it was originally a letter to my gf.  At any rate, I could REALLY use a diesel wiring diagram if anyone has one to help clear up this detective work!

TIA,

           

    ^/<>/>/>

Cambridge, MA

 

 

[Bean]

Hi Todd,

Love the diagram - that shows some dedication!

Signal lights inside are supposed to blink together.  Makes total sense really as you’re the one signaling so you don’t really need confirmation you did it correctly...  

Will see if I have the series 1 TD electrical manual in digital or paper form - If I have either I’ll post it up.

As for the traces they can be fixed with wire bridges soldered to the trace.

The biggest electrical issues these cars have are related to unsealed electrical connectors and corroded grounding trees that were used throughout the car.  There should be one inside the car on / near the steering rack, Inside rear driver quarter panel, and on driver side of radiator in the engine bay.  They’re basically common ground “trees” that get corroded and should be cleaned thoroughly.

Rabin

[todds]

Thanks Rabin, a diagram would be wonderful but actually drawing up my own and piecing things together from various other models/years has taught me a lot about my car's electrical system and generalities that peugeot uses.  For example, I've found that wires with "M" in them or M and a number are generally grounds, for instance wire 16 may be the positive lead for dome lights and M16 will be a ground wire for the dome lights.  Other things seem to be common between the models, like some of the numbers cross over.  "25" seems to refer to instrument lighting in general, 113 is the switch wiring for the rear window defogger and 107 is the heating element itself.  It helps that peugeot did a great job labeling all the wires right near the connectors!  

 

I've solved the issues of strangeness with my clock, hazards, dome lights, radio and surprise surprise, there is now a key chime too.    Along the way I've found some puzzling things.  My issues were *related* to the burnt track on my fuse board and blown #5 fuse, but I do not believe were *caused* by it.  The track I have that burned up went to the horn switch on the stalk by the steering wheel, strangely enough with this track destroyed the horn STILL worked.  This is very odd and I'll be investigating why, I'm guessing perhaps someone wired the horn separately to pass inspection or something.  I don't believe the horn or horn switch caused the original problem, I actually believe it was caused by.... the starter!

 

The reason all of those accessories above were not working is because my accessories track on the fuse board was dead, at 0V even with the key on.  This track powers the left side of a bunch of fuses, #4, #5, #6, #7, #9, and the optional right position of #14.  The track itself appeared fine, it was connected to a large brown wire underneath the board which went thru the side of the plastic fuse box and seemed original, it had original wrapping and routing back around the brake booster.  It snaked down and went to an original loop connector and was screwed on by itself to a part of the starter relay, the wire number is "1A".  Apparently this was supposed to be powering my accessories with 12V+ all the time instead of being ground.  Probably also burned out the #5 fuse/etc.  The other wire connected to the screw was large and disappeared very quickly into a hole in the starter itself.  Note that this WASN'T the post on the relay that the battery cable goes to.  I unscrewed this 1A wire from the starter relay and hooked it straight to the battery + terminal along with the other positive leads, fit on like it belonged there.  I wonder if someone misplaced it when changing the battery or something, they didn't do the greatest job of this simplest of tasks with the terminals crammed in place and the battery kicking around loose.  

 

The really weird thing about all this is that all of the wiring diagrams I have appear to send 1A to the battery anyway!

 Maybe someone with an early diesel can look under the hood and see if a large brown wire is going to the "other" starter relay post (not the one with all the other wires and the + battery lead going to it).  

 

Another issue I discovered is that one of my two white square relays towards the back of the board were leaking some voltage!  There's one for the accessories and one for the rear window defogger.  Using my multimeter I checked across the relay on the track that powers the accessories (supposed to be key-switched on or off) and the hot +12v track from the battery.  I found that with the key ON it all worked fine, but with the key OFF it would cycle back and forth between 0.00V and a a few hundred mV up to 1V or so every 2 seconds.  That can't be good for my battery!  I unplugged the identical defogger relay and tried it in the Acc spot and lo and behold, it worked perfectly leaking nothing.  Worth a check on your own car if you're reading this and easy to do.  I've found an alternate part number for a Meyle relay made in germany that should swap in for $5 instead of the ancient "Valvar Italia type 23" which was past it's prime on my car.  I'll post back and let you all know how it works out.

 

           

    ^/<>/>/>

Cambridge, MA

 

 

[Bean]

You my friend are an ideal Peugeot owner!  

The biggest issue I've ever had with this cars is with poor previous owners / mechanics / and repairs.  Undoing hacks and work arounds, finding actual root cause issues and repairing them properly is the tough part.  Once sorted these cars are absolutely fantastic and I find super easy to work on.

One other thing you should look for is fusing some of the power circuits - The magnetic fan trigger wire that routes through the rad temp switch is usually unfused, as is the fuel solenoid on the injection pump.  Sadly I speak from experience as I've had the fan wire short and burn my harness in my 89 505 Turbo (gas), and I've had the fuel solenoid wire short on the accelerator cable and burn into the harness all the way back to the ignitions switch.  I've since fused all the circuits on the cars just to make sure it doesn't happen again.

I also find wiring repairs and diagnostics very easy on these cars as they use consistent colours and stenciled numbers on the wires which match the wiring diagrams!  Doesn't get much easier than that.

Does the car have the ground wire from the battery negative to the block and another to the chassis?  I've never seen the ground wire attached the starter ground before, but there should be a bigger ground wire going to the block as well.  Diesels have a lot of starting current draw so the cables used for both positive and negative cables should be pretty hefty.

The 1A that goes to the positive cable usually goes to a distribution block that powers the accessories and other AUX circuits - This is the wire I took and ran to a little fuse box so that I could ensure every circuit had a fuse.  Fuse size depended on the load that particular... 

Rabin

 

[SRDT]

6 hours ago, todds said:

I've found that wires with "M" in them or M and a number are generally grounds

How do you say (electrical) ground in French? Masse.

I don't know if they did it in 81 but later M, P, H and C were used to help locate connectors and components on the car :

Moteur = Engine compartment

Planche de bord = Dashboard

Habitacle = Passenger compartment

Coffre = Trunk

On my 309 P532 is the switch for the rear window defogger and C945 is the rear heating element.

[Ducaati]

Clean everything. Any connection with more than about 0.1 ohms is a kind of like a resistor and it will negatively impact the functioning of the thing it operates. It will work miracles. Check to be sure the engine is grounded to the chassis. Same number, 0.1 ohms.  
 

Secondly, on my 1985 505s, when I get back to it, I’m going to put a manual override on my fan clutch control, and put a good, new electric one in the front. Texas is a hot place.