Who can explain the dome light time delay Relay circjuit?

I'm having difficulty corresponding your description to the wiring diagram, but I *believe* it goes to the seat belt module. (I'd have to pull the panel and do a cont. test with a meter to confirm, but that's my initial impression.)

What sort of problem are you trying to solve?

 

+ terminal connected to always on 12V
P terminal connected to the door light switch L and R
L terminal provides ground path for when the light should be "on"
31 terminal is always ground

When the P terminal is connected to ground (by either door switch), the unit makes terminal L ground = turns "on" the interior lights.

When ground is removed from the P terminal (both doors closed), the unit keeps terminal L at ground for X minutes (keeping the interior lights "on" for those minutes). Then the unit makes terminal L not ground = turns interior light "off".

No idea how the unit does that

 

Fwiw, I've disabled the timing on mine by jumping the relay. Interior and door lights weren't functional (I believe due to a bad relay). So in lieu of non-functional (yet timed) lights, it's simply on/off.

 

It's been a few months, and I don't remember exactly which pins I jumped. I'll try and pull the foot panel in the morning and take a picture of the jump itself.

Normally I would replace the timing relay, but I was not able to find one online...Seemed as rare as finding a three-way Lucas antenna switch.

 

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Here's a pic of the modification. Why I did this: the dome light was functional using it's on/off toggle, but the light would not illuminate when the door was opened. By removing the dead relay and jumping the pins, the dome light comes on when doors are opened. However, there is no "timed dimming-to-off" behavior now.

Pls forgive the electrical tape. A former owner/tech did that, and I've not cleaned it up yet.

 

FWIW. My timer stop working many years ago. It is a very simple timer IC circuit.I removed it from the protective cover and found one of the traces had burned open. Very obvious. I made a jumper for the trace and soldered it in. It has worked ever since. You may want to open yours and see if it something obvious.

 

Here's pics of the relay internals, if anyone is curious...

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I have never cared for that feature on any car. I dont need a dome light on when I'm not in the car and I often find myself standing there waiting for it to go off before walking away in case it is simply accidentally turned on.

But that's just me.

 

It's more about giving the driver a duration of light when they enter the car. Most people shut the door before putting their key in the ignition, and the light/fade/off feature is about giving visibility during the time of "entry" to "car started".

 

You know what, in my entire life I never thought about it from that perspective.

I guess I have never needed it and if I did I just reached over and turned the light on.

Funny the little things that everyone else knows but you.

 

I didn't know my 328 was supposed to do that - the lights illuminate when I open the door, they go off when I close it. SO...I assume that either a PO jumped that capability in the module or the "delay" section failed. Since I hate it when things don't work as designed, I guess I'll have to sort it out. THANKS for this thread!! (Heavy sarcasm).

 

Hmmm...I don't understand...

I pulled the passenger kick panel with the various relays, including the timer relay that controls the interior lights. My interior lights turn on when the door is open and turn off when the door is closed. Disconnecting that relay has no effect at all - with the relay completely disconnected, the lights still turn on when the door is open and turn off when the door is closed. It's as if there is no electrical circuit at all going through the relay or its connector. I suppose it's possible that sometime in the past a PO bypassed the relay elsewhere in the wiring OTHER than just placing a jumper wire in the connector but that seems a very difficult process when a simple jumper at the connector would do the job.

Although I'd like to have it working as intended, I'm not going to do a bunch of circuit/wiring tracing to find where that 'jumper' could be.

 

Did you set the dome light switch to the 3rd position? It has an on/off/timer position.

 

DOH!!!! Thanks! Two things that I screwed up that your post 'fixed' for me:

1. My overhead (dome) light didn't come on at all. To be embarrassingly honest, it has never come on and I never even noticed (or possibly forgot) it was there!

2. I assumed that the interior door lights (footwell lights) were on that timer so since they weren't acting that way, I ASSUMED that the jumper had been made across the relay as described in an earlier post.

I have now realized, thanks to your post, that:

1. There IS a dome light and it has a multi-position switch. It has been "off" the entire 12 years I have owned the car!

2. The dome light is on a timer, the interior door lights are not!

I am occasionally amazed at the things I am still finding out about this car - almost all of them embarrassing! I'm still not sure I could tell you what all of the the various positions of the headlight switch accomplish!

Thanks again!!!!

 

I'm in San Antonio.

 

My relay was on the floor, and a solid lump of oxidised metal. I chucked it and installed an aftermarket one which had some added features: turns off after 10 mins; turns off when the ign is turned on; turns on when the engine is turned off, which is very handy.