Elec-trickery

[NegevLandRover]

Over the past couple of weeks I have had some problems, which came and went, starting one of my 300 TDIs.

Yesterday the problem escelated:

1. after a long drive could not turn engine off - upper left fuse out (main fuse in fuse box) and engine off.

2. cannot restart the old bird - YES, even with the fuse back in

3. With fuse back in apparent short circuit between the circuits of upper left 2nd and upper left 3rd fuses.

After a couple of hours digging behind the dash I found that there has been a small electric fire which started where the mobile phone was hooked into the positive feed from the switch to the main loom (does this make sense ? - a thick white wire that leaves the rear end of the starting switch and heads back into the main wiring loom.

The original wire is, as far as I can tell undamaged but all the added on bits had melted/burnt. I cleaned up and replaced what I could, put it all back together but could not get the switch to start the engine.

When I took the +itve from the relay for the pre-heater coils directly to the stop solenoid on the pump then the engine started/switced off perfectly so figure that the stwitch is not sending the +itve to the stop solenoid ??

Still have a short circuit between the circuits of fuses number 2 and 3 top left of fuse box.

Then I found that the switch for the hazards is playing up and when it is pushed the whole electric system dies - diconected the hazard switch and all back to normal. Is a malfunction of the hazard switch likely to cause such a huge crash ??? I did not rewire the +tive from the switch as it was cold and wet and I was tired so do not know if the hazard switch was the culprit before repositioning the +itve feed to the stop solenoid.

Could this be the cause of the short circuit between the two fused circuits ?

Questions are:

1. What is the thick white wire that leaves the rear part of the starting switch towards the main loom ?

2. Is there a way of replacing the main loom without tearing the car apart?

3. Is a malfunction of the hazard switch really so cardinal ?

TIA

Adam