Vento wiring problems

[Alan Nicol]

Hi I have a '95 Vento auto with central lock, pwr windows etc etc and have had a major wiring malfunction and was wondering if anyone has any ideas, story goes that I drove car to destination and when I came back to go home opened car up and it was literally filled with smoke to the point where I couldn't even see inside, attempted to open windows when it started to smoke out of the left rear window switch, because door was locked (I didn't realise the significance at the time) I jumped in through other door and pulled switch off door and unplugged connector however wiring kept burning and started to creep inside door card but because I couldn't unlock door I couldn't remove card.
Anyhow pulled what I thought was correct fuse and it seemed to stop although I doubt it was related, managed to drive car home and when parked turned key to off but car kept running! turned ignition back to start then off again and it stopped, that was the easy part, because door was locked and for the life of me I could not unlock so had to remove card whilst door closed, what a joy, virtually an all day job but got it in the end and finally was able to open door, once off I could see extent of problem, the whole wiring loom inside door was melted and the vacuum line to lock melted in with it, so I started to trace loom and I've discovered that there are wires melted togther starting from the back door to in behind dash where the loom disappears out of sight then re-appears in foot well next to accelerator where it seems to be OK.
My questions are: is the fuse box modular and can it be removed or dropped out of way, where does loom get it's power from and can passenger section of wiring be seperated from driver.
Any help would be very gratefull as I'm struggling and I can't leave it the way it is.
Thanks
Alan

[Jmac]

. Wiring very similar to the Golf mate so dont stress looking for Vento harness and the harness is seperate left and right, fusebox is 1 piece and can be dropped out of the way.
Jmac

[Alan Nicol]

Thankyou for that, what also worries me is why it did it in the first place, I have a wrecker who has a Vento which I could remove harness from I just have to check if it's OK.

Regards
Alan

[Alan Nicol]

Hi everyone just an update to my wiring woes, managed to remove a full harness from a donor car (5hrs), I don't know about Golfs but Vento is one harness for both sides, anyhow then removed mine and refitted replacement, not quite as long as I knew what to do and discovered short cuts on donor car, so far have managed to get both front door windows working both from drivers door and passengers door, back left window works from dash switch but won't work from door switch tried a number of switch's but no luck, central locking blows fuse each time left rear door lock connector is fitted, so I suspect this item was what started the problem, will change and see what happens, right rear won't work at all although it did stop sometime before the current problem.
Once I removed old harness it was burnt almost all the way to fuse box luckilly it stopped just ahead of this and hasn't created any apparent problems.
Rear brake lights now do not work so can't move shifter, I'm hoping it's only a fuse as that part of the wiring wasn't involved and was working whilst other issue was ongoing.
One question I have is that I have a nomad connector that I can't find it's mate, it's ancillary from main harness to fuse box, and I can't remember if it actually had one, it's female white with white wire any clues?
Thanks

[Alan Nicol]

Well things looking up, replaced every single fuse last night and managed to get everything working with the exception of the right rear window, even drove it around the block without any dramas and left over night with battery connected no apparent issues this morning.

Will replace door lock mechanism on Saturday and see if I can get central locking back otherwise I'll pull all plugs off and just lock manually.

One small problem I'm still having is that operating left rear window from door switch is intermittent, it has power and I've tried other switch's and it has worked since rectifying the main issue, but as I say it's intermittent, any ideas anyone?

Will get more into it over weekend again, hopefully will track down problem.

Cheers

[Alan Nicol]

Hi finally now have everything working properly again, seems problem started in door lock mechanism connector and spread, anyhow all back together and operating perfectly.

A very satisfying end as I had doubts at times it would ever work again.