my guages and tail lights are dead, please help!

[ndilo21]

I own a 98 gst and I recently started to install a remote starter in my car made by ultrastarters and completed the installation but can't quite figure out the programming. for some reason its telling me that reservation mode is not set, but i do exactly what it says. It may have something to do with th fact that I dont have a wire for the positive door pin input that is positive when the door is opened, but i do have the negative door pin input wire connected, so the starter may not know when i exit the car. Anyway that is not my main concern, recently i started my car to take it for a drive and charge my battery after working on it. When i started to drive the car my guage lights and taillights all died. I checked all the fuses and found that the taillight fuse under the hood was blown so i tried to replace it but it immediately blew, then i realized a 30amp fuse had previously been in it even tho it says 15 amp on the key so i tried a 30 amp and it still didnt work. the fuse did not blow right away but my guages and taillights were very dim and it eventually blew. The entire time i was trying to figure ou the programming of the remote starter all my lights and guages worked fine. I tried disconnecting the remote starter but the problem persists. There is some very large drain coming from the fuse or some kind of short. can someone please help me figure it out because i have no idea where to even begin? I have included a pic of the underhood fuse box, ignore the purple circle...the fuse with the problem is the 6 slot from the right in the top row. it is a 15 amp fuse to the left of the awd empty slot (5th fuse from left because there is no awd fuse, the fuse is in the 6th slot from right).

 

[luv2rallye]

Do NOT put in a fuse larger than 15 amps or you will melt some wires somewhere. In fact it sounds like you already did - running it so long with that 30 amp fuse (allowing 30 amps in wires only large enough to carry 15 amps). When wires melt they don't always just break. Most times they melt the insulation first allowing the wires to touch some metal or other wire (possibly melting it too). You've either got a short (most likely) or something is connected on that circuit that draws more current than the circuit allows. That circuit powers all the marker lights (front & rear), front combination lights (but not the headlights themselves), rear combination lights, and license plate light. Power goes thru a 40 amp fusable link and then the tail light relay before reaching the 15 amp fuse. You may have easily melted wires in the engine fusebox which is the first place I would look (unbolt it and look underneath).

General short finding technique:
To find a short, first disconnect the obvious devices (eg. taillights if blowing taillight fuse) to see if fuse still blows. Also try disconnecting everything that is or may be on that fuse’s circuit or anything suspicious or recently worked on that’s electrical. Disconnect anything electrical that doesn’t work. Examine the wiring and connectors on the things you disconnect to see if they are frayed, broken, melted, wet, or touching other wires or metal. 95% of the time you will find the short this way (which is also the quickest).

If it still blows you will have to use a tougher technique. Replace the fuse that blows (temporarily and only for testing purposes) with an actual small 12 volt light bulb like a automotive tester light, marker light, or license plate light (don't try to start the engine with it in). The bulb will limit the current so you now don’t have to worry about any short melting the wires. If you don’t have a tester light you may have to solder wires on a bulb or put a bulb in a socket with wires. Then insert the wires into the slots where the fuse was. If there is a short, it will lite brightly (no short may lite it half bright along with a device doing the other half, or it may not lite at all). Then start disconnecting one at a time (1) things that don’t work, (2) suspected things, and (3) anything on that circuit. When you disconnect the item that is causing the short, the light will go out (so it's a great detection device). Keep in mind the short may be in the wiring or fusebox which is harder to find, but first check all the easier, more obvious devices and places.

 

[ndilo21]

I am going to test for a short tonight, but does anyone know where I can get a wiring diagram that i can trace the wires coming from the fuse box, and if i did melt the insulation off a wire somewhere, how do i replace it? I am doubtful that i melted a wire tho because the car has had the 30 amp fuse in it since i bought it, i just never noticed it until i had this problem. I also felt alot of wires under the dash and reached under the fuse box while i had a friend switch my lights on to see if anything got hot and i didn't feel anyting. I think i forgot to mention that the short or whatever it is, is triggered when I turn my headlight switch. When i put the parkinglights on or the headlights on everything dies but the headlights still work. The draw is so huge that my deck in my car shuts off along with some other stereo equipment. There must be some kind of constant draw somewhere tho because my battery is dying constatly so when im not working on the car i have to disconnect a terminal. Also to any remote starter owners out there, could u tell me why for some reason the reservation mode wont set for my starter, i tap the brakes and do all that nonsense but nothing happens. The only wire that may be incorrect is the wire that is supposed to be positive when the door is opened. There isn't one in the car only a negative signal when the door is closed. The other wire that is connected to the door pin is positive only at a certain point when u start to push it in, then is is negative. I have the positive door pin input hooked up to this wire so im not sure what to do.

 

[luv2rallye]

Don't know about your alarm but if you blew a 30 amp fuse even once, you obviously had at least 30 amps at that time which is enough to damage 15 amp wires if on longer than about 3 seconds.

Does it still blow when you pull the headlight relay and turn them on?

 

[ndilo21]

is the headlight relay one of the four relays on that white panel under the dash? or is it one of the relays in the driver kick near the fuse box?

 

[ndilo21]

ok so i just got done doing some work on my car and here is what i found:
i took out my air box and took apart the fuse box, none of the wires were damaged at all.
i put one end of my tester light on the positive terminal and the other on the battery clip. when the head lights are off the tester lights about half bright then dims to almost nothing? im not sure what this means.
when i turned the headlights on and left the tester in the same position the headlight and taillight realys in the fuse box begin clicking (about one click every 3 seconds). they are the two relays right below the the fuses in the upper right corner of the fuse box. the headlight relay is circled in purple and the taillight relay is to the left of it. when i pull the headlight relay the taillight relay begins clicking a lot faster.
I also realized that my parking lights and the sidemarkers are not working. i believe they are on the same circut as the taillights.
i have a meter and i put one end on the clip and the other on the positive terminal and it starts at about 10 and slowly climbs to almost 12, im not sure what its supposed to read or if i did that right but that is everything that i did.

 

[luv2rallye]

i put one end of my tester light on the positive terminal and the other on the battery clip. when the head lights are off the tester lights about half bright then dims to almost nothing? im not sure what this means.

when i turned the headlights on and left the tester in the same position the headlight and taillight realys in the fuse box begin clicking.... when i pull the headlight relay the taillight relay begins clicking a lot faster.

I also realized that my parking lights and the sidemarkers are not working.

i have a meter and i put one end on the clip and the other on the positive terminal and it starts at about 10 and slowly climbs to almost 12,...

First of all I'm assuming when you hook up the tester light or the meter, you have the positive battery cable removed from the battery and are testing between this cable and the positive battery post (ie. tester is in series). That said, your first case (in the quoted area above this) is just a capacitor charging and is normal and correct. Your second case is also normal since the tester is robbing most of the voltage so the relays don't have enough voltage to stay on and they toggle on/off. Your third statement is a clue that a short (or open) may be in this circuit preventing these lights from working. Your fourth statement is also normal (assuming your using a voltmeter) since the loads are just providing a path to ground (no current is flowing) so you are then measuring battery voltage.

What happens when you pull just the taillight relay and battery hooked up and lights turned on? Do you still blow the fuse? If not, but it blows when taillight relay is in, then your short (or too many loads) is in this circuit. In this case disconnect (or remove) all the lights (and any other loads) on this circuit and try again. If it now doesn't blow, the short (or too much current draw) is in one of the items removed. If it still blows, put the tester light back in and start looking for a wire on this circuit touching a ground (where the voltage will read zero). You can save fuses by getting a 15 amp circuit breaker fuse at a auto store which plugs right into the fuse holder.

BTW, with the headlight switch turned on, you should draw about 21 amps from the battery. You can half this by pulling the headlight relay. If you have an ammeter that can read that high you could measure it.
Here is also a helpful link: http://www.dsmtuners.com/forums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=54846

 

[ndilo21]

When i pull the taillight relay out and turn on the headlights the fuse does not blow, so i know that the short is on this circuit. Now how do I find where the short is, do you know where I can get a wiring diagram that i can trace all the wires on this circut to look for a short? You said to remove all of the lights on this circuit and then see if the fuse blows but what lights are on this circuit? obviosly the taillights and guages and i believe the sidemarkers and praking lights, but what to i remove, should i just take the bulbs out?

 

[luv2rallye]

Yes either take the bulbs out or unplug them and test again (to see if one of them is the problem). I have the complete '99 Mitsu eclipse service manual and as I said before that taillight circuit powers all the marker lights (front & rear), front combination lights (but not the headlights themselves), rear combination lights, and license plate light. Power goes thru a 40 amp fusable link, then the tail light relay, then the 15 amp fuse, then all the lights. After removing all these lights, you should (temporarily for testing) remove that taillight relay and insert your tester light (not the meter) leads into the relay socket's pins 4 & 5 (top 2 of an upside down T). These are the two the relay connects when activated which supplies power to those lights. You don't need to turn on the headlights. Your tester light will turn on bright if there's a short, or half bright if there is still some load connected or partial short (tester light is normally supposed to be off with all the lights removed). To find short, first inspect (and wiggle) the bulb sockets and the wires that go into them and watch your tester light for change. Most of the time the problem is there. Otherwise you will have to start following the wires from the fuse and measuring voltages on them. One of the wires may have melted into another or touched metal or be internally broken.

Alternatively you could disconnect the battery, remove taillight relay and lights, and measure resistance between relay socket pin 4 and ground (not pin 5 which goes to battery). If there's low resistance you have a problem (should be infinite) and will need to start inspecting/wiggling light sockets and wires.

Another possibilty is the excess 30 amp current melted a wire in two that supplies the lights (so they don't work now) and the other half of the wire is now shorting to some metal or another wire.

Best and most complete diagrams are in the Mitsu book (big $$$) but I think Chilton's may have some basic ones that will be good enough for this. You can also get manuals on Ebay or order them on CD (http://www.ecanfix.com/~manualcd/index2.htm).

 

[ndilo21]

i finally got my car fixed it was the wire in the radio area that is for he dimmer/illumination on the deck. It was a green/white wire that was grounded and not supposed to be

 

[foreverinvayne]

too bad i didn't see this thread earlier. I could have told you exactly what it was . Cuz when iw as installing my stereo on my car I unwittingly did the same thing with the wire and when i turned on my car the gauge lights and the tail lights were out... i freaked out finally found the problem went back and replaced teh fuse and it was fine. Sorry I didn't see the thread sooner and cause you to go through all that

 

[Paintballaa5]

I know this is 7 years old, but im having the same problem and cant seem to find what is shorting it out! I checked all in the radio area, pulled the bulbs out of the taillights, and check the bulk of wires coming out of the fuse box(it doesnt look torn or anything), but it's still blowing the fuse. I dont know what else to check..