240: Odd electrical happening

92 sedan - everything working perfectly. No accidents or leaks. Grounds all tight and clean. Then all of a sudden headlamps go off, no dash or interior lights, no radio.

Whats more - the door chime comes on when the glove box is open (no light either). Hazards dont work but the turn signals do.....and the chime comes on then too.

I have read similar issues on various sites with most 'solved' but never a final post as to what they did or what caused it. IIRC fuse 5 was usually involved. Am wondering if its another 'too much on one circuit'. Headlamps could be relay / wired direct to relieve it if so.

I have had headlight relays (small one in dash) fail or someone use the wrong one and the dash lights and headlamps are all out of sync (this one is the correct one). Has to be something like a relay or fuse to do this all of a sudden and for no other existential reason. Volvo is infamous for overloading circuits that eventually show themselves.

UPDATE: Issue has been solved. Turned out to be a blown Fuse 10 from a defective chime module. Go figure.

I've never had your particular issue but that fuse box is a mess, lots of potential for bent connectors to touch each other if you've been back there yanking on stuff. Start pokin' around with a test light and a wiring diagram, I'd reckon

That's some funny symptoms. Fuses 7,8,9,10 are all tied together on one side, with fused sides feeding brake lights, courtesy lights, hazard lights, radio, power windows. The common side has a big red wire to the battery junction box.

Without disturbing anything, I'd check the voltage (to a nearby ground) on both sides of fuses 7,8,9,10. I'm guessing that your red junction box to fuses 7-10 wire is bad, but I can't yet explain the door chime going off. After checking voltages, spin the fuse if just one is bad.

Edit: for '92 it may be a brown wire instead of red -- they went back to red in '93. Before '92, fuses 6-10 were from a red wire. Also, check the voltages with headlights or hazards on. If the connection is poor, it may show OK voltage with no load, but bad voltage when loaded down a bit by lights.

open glovebox causes the chime in my 1993 245. thought it was expected behaviour.
no other faults.
huh.

I would suspect fretting the the junction block under the hood inside the driver side fender. I would pull the terminals and maybe add some dielectric grease.

^ Good ideas.

Not sure if it could be this, but I had some weird issues related to door chime and other electronics that ended up being a worn out key ignition switch. Try wiggling your key (car on, parked, not moving) gently up and down, in and out, and most importantly, rotate slightly clockwise and counter clockwise, not enough to reengage starter or kill the engine, but as much as you can get away with. See if there's any change... IIRC there's lots of pins on the back and the internal switching contacts can get worn out. The pins on them can also get carbon build up and act funky. I've read the carbon build up can happen due to the practice of 'checking' the alternator by disconnecting the terminal from the battery. Bit of a pain in the neck (literally) to replace, if you should have to.

This car had a NEW blue box OE Volvo switch installed at one time that turned out to be bad - was replaced with a known good one that had been in a car for about 20k.

From what it looks like, there is a brown supply line to the junction box on the fender that is affiliated with every system affected. What or why anything happened with it - dunno yet. My guess is the chime is a back feed through a ground or something.

If its something as to too much on a circuit, I'll probably wire the headlamps into relays and reduce that much at least. Craziest thing as there was no indication of anything developing and MANY times its been driven at night with radio blasting, etc. to overload or blow a fuse.

Thanks for the input

Issue solved. Original post updated. Thanks for the input guys.

bobxyz said:

That's some funny symptoms. Fuses 7,8,9,10 are all tied together on one side, with fused sides feeding brake lights, courtesy lights, hazard lights, radio, power windows. The common side has a big red wire to the battery junction box.

Without disturbing anything, I'd check the voltage (to a nearby ground) on both sides of fuses 7,8,9,10. I'm guessing that your red junction box to fuses 7-10 wire is bad, but I can't yet explain the door chime going off. After checking voltages, spin the fuse if just one is bad.

Edit: for '92 it may be a brown wire instead of red -- they went back to red in '93. Before '92, fuses 6-10 were from a red wire. Also, check the voltages with headlights or hazards on. If the connection is poor, it may show OK voltage with no load, but bad voltage when loaded down a bit by lights.

Click to expand...

Thanks for this information