Parking Sensor Leads

"Ellis" wrote in news:dsq514$97a$ snipped-for-privacy@news8.svr.pol.co.uk:

why not access the light unit as if changing a bulb and see what colour the leads are there or even connect into them at that point

don't forget however that there will not neccersarily be a negative wire in your wiring loom as it most likely uses the body work as an earth return

car wiring doesn't conform to the red and black principle

if you really want to test the wires by probing them with your meter I would clip the negative to the body shiny metal and clip the positive lead to a needle and poke about with that.

Chris

"Chris Selwyn-Smith" wrote in message news:Xns9769A52A9FF93chrisselwynsmithcouk@158.152.254.254...

Will try that first. That would make life very easy.

Needle sounds an excellent idea. Part of the problem (apart from my own ignorance) is that the car is parked in the street and the weather has been too cold and the light too poor to do much. I am hoping for a bright spring day soon. Your advice is very helpful, Thankyou.

Ellis

I guess you wouldn't want to be crawling under the car looking for the reverse light sensor on the tranny, then. ;-)

What'd be slick is to go to the public library, if you have a really big one near you, and look up the wiring diagram for your car - there might be a reverse light signal accessible right in the passenger compartment. But, I guess stringing wires through the trunk shouldn't be all that bad. :-)

Have Fun! Rich

Went to the local library but no manual available for this car. Stringing wires through the trunk is the way to go, according to the parking sensor instructions.

Most parking sensors that I have seen have just two wires. A red one that connects to the reverse light circuit, and a black one that is earthed on the car body.

This one that I got off Ebay has a power connector with two wires, one red and one black. It also has one connector for the reverse light circuit, which is a single red wire.

The reason is it doubles up as a digital clock as well as a reversing parking sensor. So I guess it needs two power supplies, one that activates the clock and one that is activated only when the gear is put into reverse.

I don't need the clock so I am going to put the two red wires together and connect them to the reverse light circuit. I have not figured out what to do with the black one yet (until I do some probing with the multimeter).

I have connected both red wires to the positive terminal of a battery and the black wire to the negative terminal and the whole thing works just fine. (But it only works when the two red wires are joined together).

I looked at the reverse light socket today and it looks to just have one terminal feeding the socket so I am thinking maybe the car body is used as the earth return (as Chris suggested).

The car belongs to a friend of mine and when we checked the lights this afternoon we, or rather I, discovered that one of the rear brake lights was kaput, as well as one of the front side lights. These things the driver may not be aware of (until it is pointed out to them by an officer of the law).

So some good has come of this enterprise so far. Just hope I don't blow the circuits on the car fitting the sensors.

Thanks for the replies.

Ellis