Dead!

oldtimer · Post by **oldtimer** » Mon Aug 14, 2006 5:37 am

Cruising along last night in my "new" 72 411 when all of a sudden the gen lite came on for 2 seconds & the car died. I have absolutely nothing! No lites, etc NOTHING

!!! Battery is good & connections are tight & clean............Any ideas? Thanks all!

raygreenwood · Post by **raygreenwood** » Mon Aug 14, 2006 9:57 am

Aaaah......yesssssss! Ther scourge of the 72 411. Here is one thing that did this on both of my 411's. Look in the fuse panel. See if one of the main 16 amp fuses is dead. There may be more than one dead one.
Next.....and this is for if you find those dead fuses........is your headlight switch a hair bit loose in the dash?

If so...here is what is happening. There is an indention in the steel panel inside of the dash. It fits into one of teh two slots in teh ferrule of the body of the switch. This is so that once the tubular nut is tightened.....the switch cannot rotate.
If teh switch rotates....the wires make contact with the metal dash panel and short everything out.
Also check all of teh fuses in teh engine compartment. Ray

oldtimer · Post by **oldtimer** » Mon Aug 14, 2006 3:34 pm

Thanks Ray. Will check it out this weekend & LYK

raygreenwood · Post by **raygreenwood** » Mon Aug 14, 2006 3:48 pm

Cool. I would bet that you will find this to be close to the problem. I mention tha5t the 411's did it...and not the 412's...because the 411's did not have the square idiot light for "fasten the seatbelts" on a lot of models like the 412 did. That means that the light switch is closer to the corner of the dash....and the wires are kinda short. So as the switch got a hair loose....it rotated.

Also...there are generally only two things that can cause this kind of power loss on a 411. (1) blowing that main fuse.....which turns off EVERYTHING...even your emergency flashers

(2) A loose primary ground braid at the battery.

Oh..OH..OH ! and I forgot...either a loose battery or the seat being set too low and contacting the positive battery termninal post. But this generally blows that main 16 amp fuse in teh block as well.

Lastly...if the fuse is blown and the main light switch is not loose or rotated....pull the fuse panel and macke sure no wires behind that 16 amp fuse are pulled loose.

This very thing happened to me four times...many years ago. The last time almost got me killed. I was going through a dark...even in daylight underpass that went under what was at one time about 8 railroad tracks. It was about 50 yds long. The fuse blew as I crested the hill and started down. So there I was...sitting in the dark fumbling for a spare fuse with no flashers and no way and nowhere to push the car off the road. I very nearly got smacked by a large delivery truck.
I pulled over for two hours and finally searched out that lightswitch problem. Ray

oldtimer · Post by **oldtimer** » Wed Aug 23, 2006 8:32 pm

That did it Ray. Yeah, it was kinda weird never had that one happen before. Of course it had to be darker than all get-out! Got it flatbedded home. Thanks again for your help

mrbaja · Post by **mrbaja** » Wed Aug 23, 2006 9:03 pm

Reminds me of about a similar thing I had happen to me in my old bug when I was a kid. My brother and I were going to a surf break on Kanehoe Marine base on Oahu. In order to get to the beach, the beach access road crosses the air strip which is about 100 yards wide. Murphy was with us because as we started crossing the air strip, the bug died and coasted to the middle. Then the gates came down to block road access with all kinds of light beacons and buzzers. Then we looked and saw some fighter jets coming in to land. Scared the crap out us.

We got out and started pushing the bug as best as we could when some MP's started yelling at us to get it of faster. They didn't help. Then some other soldiers saw the problem and came and helped us push it out of the way. One of them was an VW guy and found the ground strap was loose.

Aloha, Theo