Xantia Electric Window Relay

[davek-uk]

Help!! I'm lost without FCF...

I have lost power to my Mk1 Xantia electric windows. If I power the control unit in the driver's door directly all works ok. According to Haynes there is a relay between the control box and the fuse box. This one relay energises both front and rear windows.

Does anyone know where this relay is located?

I have traced the power wire #6005 from the driver's door, through the umbilical, down to the floor, across to the centre console (where it becomes #600), across the floor to the passenger's side and up behind the dashboard/glove box. And I can't seem to get the glove box out to investigate further...

Any help much appreciated!

[Dickieg]

According to Autodata the relay is located in the fuse box by the drivers right knee, its the one to the bottom right of fuse 16, the lower one of the two.

I'm pretty sure you won't find anything behind the glovebox other than heater fan 'stuff'. If however you wish to get the glove box out, you need to lift out some felt at the bottom in the corners of the glove box, Torx 10 screws IIRC.

[davek-uk]

Thanks for that. You and Autodata were correct the relay was there. The fuse number fooled me. For some reason my electric windows seem to use fuse 21. Once I knew which relay it was, finding the fuse it uses was easy.

I have an odd thing happening with the circuit though, and with my very limited understanding of stuff electrical it's boggling my brain!

With the relay out, the voltage at the fuse is a poor 8.5, rather than the normal 12.5 found elsewhere. As soon as I put the relay back in, and the electric window circuit is added, the voltage at the fuse drops to 1.5. This is clearly my problem. The relay coil is fed from the ignition switch and is a healthy 12.5 and the relay trips ok. The main live side of the circuit doesn’t connect to earth - I’ve tested that.

I have fed the circuit from the relay’s ignition feed by bridging the relay connectors (live ignition coil feed to live main power input) and it all works ok. Does this indicate that the circuit from the relay to the windows is ok and that the problem lies somewhere earlier (to the fuse box or fuse box to relay)? I’m finding these results hard to fathom, and I can only assume I have a very dodgy or dirty connection that is offering a lot of resistance. But how do I find it? Any ideas anyone?

[CitroXim]

Dave,

I've just been looking at the circuit. Accepting that it's F21 (that is normally the Central Locking supply fuse) If you only see 8.5V on there when the relay (6021) is out and this drops to 1.5V when the relay is in and angergised, this suggests there is a fair old resistance between the supply bar (BB10) and the fuse board.

This is a guess but as BB10 is in the engine bay on the passengers side and the fuse box is inside on the drivers side, a good place to look for the problem will be in the part of the loom that runs across the front of the car under the radiator... The cable is more than likely to be in this part of the loom and it's not by any means immune from the ravages of damp.

[Dickieg]

This is a guess but as BB10 is in the engine bay on the passengers side and the fuse box is inside on the drivers side, a good place to look for the problem will be in the part of the loom that runs across the front of the car under the radiator... The cable is more than likely to be in this part of the loom and it's not by any means immune from the ravages of damp.

A 'good' place to check is in the large brown connector directly behind the O/S headlight on the inner wing.

[davek-uk]

Excellent chaps, just what I needed - some good pointers!

From all this I would guess that each part of the fusebox is supplied by seperate wires from the engine bay - is that right? Testing the voltages of the other fuses suggests the feeds to all the rest are ok.

I'll have a look at the brown connector first (thanks Dickie). I've had connection problems with these before (the one under the accelerator pedal feeding the rear o/s loom). And then, if needed, the loom under the rad (thanks Jim); I've noticed this with water in before - and antifreeze every time I drain the cooling system! A damn stupid place to run wires if you ask me...