Hello again lads.

As I was cleaning the corrosion from my battery terminals today, I decided to revisit a little electrical mystery. There is a bundle of five small gauge wires that I traced from the battery area to a place down low on the drivers side of the engine compartment.

There is 1 red wire, 1 red/white, 1 blue, 1 white, and 1 black.

The black is affixed to the negative battery terminal. The white is connected to the drivers side hood latch mechanism. The red, R/W and the blue wires have inline fuses.

The red/white wire is connected the the positive battery terminal with a 30 amp inline fuse. The red wire has a 7.5 amp inline fuse and has evidently broken away from the positive terminal.

The remaining blue wire has a 10 amp inline fuse and has also broken away.

The '93 850 seems to run fine with no electrical issues.

I've had the car for about ten years, but I was speculating a previous owner may have had some custom audio equipment that was removed before I acquired it.

Anybody care to venture a guess about the mystery wires? Should I reconnect the two loose wires? What Volvo system would require a 30 amp inline fuse?

Thanks in advance...

- thumbs

30 Amps is a husky fuse and you need #18 ga wire for short runs and heavier for long runs.
Maybe the P/O had a bruiser siren or alarm that would blast with the hood opened up as Klaus suggested. It may have been for a giant amp installed by some now hearing impaired idiot.

Since everything is OK, I'd remove the fuses and maybe the wires and avoid
tempting fate.

Cheers, Bill

Yep. I'm going to just ignore those dangling wires as I always have. Thing is, they're in that official looking ribbed plastic conduit.

Maybe there was some fancy communication/radio equipment in there at one time.

It would be just my luck to reconnect them to the positive terminal and fry something.

- thumbs

You can remove the grill from the outside.

I think that the directions were posted here or at Volvospeed.

If you study the clips you can figure out how to do it - I rotated my clips so that they all faced in one direction.

Also - study the glove compartment latch - there is a location to drill a small hole to insert a wire to open the door. I marked all three of our 850s.

I have a trailer hitch on my car.....the added wire to battery with the fuse is for the trailer plug......

Well, I definitely don't have a trailer hitch. But it makes sense there might be a circuit there.

Thanks for the response.

- thumbs

Is it possible that there used to be an alarm system? No other reason to be connected to the hood latch. I suppose that you need to follow the wires and see where they send you.

Most audio systems will use wires on the cabin side.
--
My back feels better when I sit in a Volvo seat

An alarm system crossed my mind, but why have it connected to a hood latch? To release the hood, you'd have to already be inside.

Is there a sensor in the latch that would activate a warning light if the hood wasn't completely closed? That would account for the white wire.

There must have been a nice stereo and CD player installed and taken out by a previous owner.

- thumbs