Bypassing Volvo 1362367 Bulb Failure Relay [gluhlampenkontrolle]

Many old Volvo model use a relay module to detect when a bulb has failed and display a warning light on the dashboard. This bulb failure relay can fail in a way which prevents bulbs from illuminating or displays a false warning on the dashboard. Replacing this module can be quite expensive, this article shows you how to bypass this relay at no cost to disable the bulb failure warning system. In this case, we will be preforming this on a 1988 Volvo 240 DL which had no functioning brake lights.

Instructions

Locate the bulb failure relay, this should be a large red cylinder. In the 1988 Volvo 240, this is under the steering wheel behind the cloth kick panel.

Connect the following pins together to bypass the bulb failure circuit. You can connect all circuits as shown below, or only the effected circuit. In my case, I only needed to connect pins 9 and 10 to restore the functionality of my brake lights.

You can see below that I stripped back the wire directly and soldered a jumper wire between pins 9 and 10. Be sure to use a wire of the same gauge or larger. Using an insufficient gauge wire can cause the insulation to melt as the wire heats up.

Schematics

I have included 2 schematic diagrams below to help visualize the lighting circuits. Use these to help you identify pins on your bulb failure module.