Fiat Ducato Pilote Habitation Door Sensor Issue

How to get to electrical wiring under the cab floor

 
 
 
 
 
bobbyluk
Newbie
Avatar
Gender: n/a
Age: 57
Posts: 13
Registered: 04 / 2024
My Motorhome: Pilote G600
Base Vehicle: Fiat Ducato
Subject:

Fiat Ducato Pilote Habitation Door Sensor Issue

 · 
Posted: 18.04.2024  ·  #1
I have a Pilote G600 motorhome. Fiat Ducato chassis. It is a left hand drive, just FYI, so passenger seat on the right.

When I'm driving the rear door (habitation) warning light, flashes on and off, but only occasionally. So not a big issue, but annoying. So thought I'd fix it, or try. I managed to find where the issue lies, which is the wiring under the flooring in the cab near the passenger seat. This was after dismantling the door, checking all the connections, etc. By chance I went to switch off the ignition while testing the the door connectors (with it in bits) and suddenly the light went out, I moved a bit and it came back on. So put door back together and now I can reproduce the warning light going on and off by applying a bit of weight on the flooring in the cab near the passenger seat.

My problem now is getting access under the flooring so I can locate the fault exactly. From what I can see I need to remove the passenger seat, which should allow me to get some access under the floor. I think it's just two bolts at the front, and the rear then just slides off the rear bolts.

But just thought I'd ask on here is case anyone has done this before, or has a better suggestion on how to get under the floor.

Many thanks for any help / ideas


sprinter
Eat's Sleep's craic
Avatar
Gender:
Location: Co Wicklow
Age: 93
Posts: 7701
Registered: 01 / 2015
My Motorhome: Matilda 2 Pilote 703FP Explorateur
Base Vehicle: 3ltr 318 Sprinter Automatic
Subject:

Fiat Ducato Pilote Habitation Door Sensor Issue

 · 
Posted: 18.04.2024  ·  #2
My pilote is Sprinter based so the seat mounting may be different but it has6 bolts, from sitting position, 2 in the front , 1 on the rear facing back into the Hab area of the van , 1 on the side towards the back of the frame facing the other seat, all 4 screwed to vertical straps and then 2 down trough the frame, you can see the holes when you slide the seat all the way forward, the whole swivel frame and seat can be lifted out, it's heavy and when refitting, secure the last 2 first ( don't drop the bolts down in the seat box ) the cabling is trunk-ed into the seat box and trunk-ed back out.

Liked by: bobbyluk

bobbyluk
Newbie
Avatar
Gender: n/a
Age: 57
Posts: 13
Registered: 04 / 2024
My Motorhome: Pilote G600
Base Vehicle: Fiat Ducato
Subject:

Re: Fiat Ducato Pilote Habitation Door Sensor Issue

 · 
Posted: 03.05.2024  ·  #3
Managed to get the passenger seat out so I could get under the floor.

Just FYI for those with Ducato chassis, the seat removal ended up being really easy. I removed the seat from the base below the swivel mechanism, 3 bolts each side, 1 at front and 2 at rear, just have to swivel the chair to gain access. Then seat comes away from base, but it is heavy as swivel mechanism still attached to seat. You could remove the seat from the swivel first to make it easier, but I just decided to give it a try and it was fine. Then the base comes away from the floor by removing two bolts at the front, and I had to remove the two rear base anchors as the base wouldn't just slide off these because the flooring that had been fitted in the campervan is too close. If you are lucky they shouldn't need to be removed and the base should just slide off once they've been slackened a little. Also, remember to disconnect the yellow airbag sensor before moving the seat.

So I now figured I can get under the flooring and find the faulty wire, easy. Well after hours of tracing wires and getting nowhere I accidentally touched the big wire connector terminal that lives under the seat and suddenly the rear door open sensor flashed off then back on. So the problem was in the terminal and not in the wiring under the flooring, when I stood on the floor I must have just been moving the cable enough for it to move in the terminal. So I didn't need to remove the seat, but hey-ho, at least now I know how to for the future.

When I unclipped the two parts of the terminal I noticed two of the little pins on one side where not aligned correctly, so I realigned them, reconnected the two terminal ends together and now the rear door sensor is always on. So I thought it's still a bad connection so I removed the black wire, which from trial and error I knew was the door sensor wire, from both sides of the terminal and fitted new electrical crimped connection so I could connect it separately to the big terminal. I did this and still the rear door open light was on. When I disconnect the wire, now easy as it's separate from the big block, the rear door light goes out.

Further inspection I realised that the little pins that were not aligned had been moved, guessing by previous owner, to stop the rear door open warning. But gradually, they had rubbed away the plastic so they were sometimes connecting. When they did connect the warning light would come on, when they didn't warning light would go out.

So I've put it all back together, flooring, seat back, etc. but for now I've left the black wire not connected so that the rear door open warning doesn't annoy me.

Next step is to test the sensor in the habitation door, as I suspect it might be faulty and I think it was faulty for the previous owner hence their 'temporary fix' to disconnect it by moving the pins in the terminal. So they created two problems rather than fixing one.

Anybody know how to test if a door sensor is working?


Selected quotes for multi-quoting:   0

Registered users in this topic

Currently no registered users in this section

The statistic shows who was online during the last 5 minutes. Updated every 90 seconds.