How I fixed a couple of electrical problems on our old Holden Apollo car.
My brother in law has a catering company doing mainly spit roasts for weddings, work do's, birthday parties and that sort of thing. He had an issue over the weekend with one of his cooks not turning up so called me out of desperation needing a trailer towed to one of his jobs. Unfortunately his trailer was a bit too big for our old Holden Apollo (1991, carburetor). The Apollo is basically a Toyota Camry rebadged. Anyway, after hooking up the trailer and pulling away I noticed the indicators (or flashers as they call them out here in Australia) were not working. No dramas, as they say, probably just a fuse blown. After returning home and switching the engine off the radiator fans continued to operate long after the engine had cooled down so I ended up unplugging the battery to stop that being run down by it.
Searching For the Car's Electrical Problems
The following morning I took a closer look. Under the hood of a 91 Holden Apollo there in a fuse box but I could not for the life of me find anything related to the indicators. Finding it pretty difficult to locate anything useful on the web I ended up doing a bit of calling round. Some really helpful guys at one of the parts places suggested the relays may not be working for the fans on the radiator. Sure enough I found them in the box under the hood and on unplugging these, the fans stopped and I could replug the battery.
Electrical Problems with Fuses
I was also informed of where to locate the other electrical fuses - there is a small fuse box located in the 'right hand kick panel' which is in the driver's foot well between the accelerator pedal and the door. It is a real pain to look at as you need to put a knee on the floor outside the car and really stick your head in the driver's foot well to see it but sure enough the fuse for the indicators had blown. Once the fuse was changed, the indicators worked just fine.
Electrical Problems with Relays
Unfortunately the relays have proved a little more difficult to buy - I have tried a couple of parts places and was told I needed to go to Holden direct but Holden no longer manufacture these so advised me to go to Toyota who still make them for the Camry. With these replaced everything is back to normal! (BTW replacing these relays is as easy as a fuse, just pull out the old one and plug in the new:)
Anyway, having not found anything along these lines on the internet to help me with my problems I thought I would share my findings with you - hope they help.