What was the other relay being used for that he nicked though, kind of makes
you wonder....
Some cars do use the screen heaters as an aerial. Ther eis usually though
chokes in the circuit to stop problems with the apparent earthing of the
other end of the heater!

Brian
Brian

--
From the Sofa of Brian Gaff Reply address is active
"whisky-dave" wrote in message
...
On Tuesday, December 11, 2012 1:16:58 PM UTC, Gary wrote:
I have a car Fiesta 1.3 Endura 2001 – 2002.

It is fitted with a Ford CD car radio.

Up until two days ago the car radio worked fine (and it still does ).

Here's the problem; –

about 18 months ago the rear screen heater stopped working.

I looked at it and couldn't see anything obvious. I checked the

connectors and the switch and the fuses. put to one side to do when I

could fit it in.



On Saturday I got the workshop manual out and the multimeter. 10 minutes

late I locate the problem, the relay which is mounted up behind the fuse

box appears to not work. Upon examination of the relay the high current

terminal has overheated and gone open circuit. Cleaned up and swapped

that relay for another one of the same type mounted in the same fuse box

checked circuits and it's okay.



Later that day I go to Tesco's and radio isn't working very well, low

signal.

I think to myself that's funny! Just out of interest I turn off the rear

screen heater. The radio now works. So I turn the heat back on again,

and the radio goes hissy, turn it off and the radio is fine.



I've rechecked that the rear screen circuits are all intact and not

arcing or anything but it got me beat (that's not hard).

Any ideas ?

The drain on the battery from the working heater is causing the radio
problems, maybe the car battery is on it's way out, have you tried measuring
the voltage when the heaters on. Clucthcing at straws perhaps

I'd blame the cold weather ;-)