All my lights are out inside the car until I hit my brake wtf...

[sytrus]

I was in my driveway about a week ago when everything inside my car went out. A/F, Boost, speedo, odom, a/c, and my brake lights everything. Now, my headunit still lit up and worked fine, no performance issues to speak of and my headlights still popped up and worked. Now, here comes the weird part...

Everything lights back up when I hit my brake including my brake light. Weird thing is, my A/f gauge is wired to my cigarette lighter LCD, so my lights have to be on the middle switch for the a/f to even light up.... now it's not the case, every single light in my car will light up again if I hit my brake. Does ANYONE have any ideas?

I've checked my fuses and I didn't see any issues, the headunit was a new install but it happened three weeks after it had been put in.

Thanks in advance.

 

[Spln_Hrd]

I've been in a pickle this similair to this with my 2g, just got to pull out the multimeter.

I ended up pullin my dash and replacing fried grounds which regained alot of stuff on my car, then I put in a "buzzer"(thats what mitsu calls it, it is a body control moduel if you ask me), and I still need an srs module which I dont care to fix.

 

[Mikelb]

wow, check your grounds, and especially the wiring on that stereo. Make sure that there's nothing touching the body (grounding when it's not supposed to)...

this is really weird... might want to try moving wires around to see if there are any you can find that are shorted internally...

There's someone up here that has wiring diagrams, (Chris Fullwood, IIRC) ask him for some help. See if you can find a wiring diagram that is for the brake switch/system... sounds like something in the series could have gone bad (also make sure the brake pedal isn't binding/pinching any wires).

 

[Defiant]

Make sure your battery is bolted down, that the positive terminal has a cover and is not shorting against the hood or a strut bar.

 

[Spln_Hrd]

Just had an idea, change all your tail lights, if you had an elemant from a two stage bulb come apart on you but hit the other elemant I will create a short to voltage which could do some of this strange stuff, like this.

I looked at a diagram at work and this is the best I could come up with I hope it helps.

 

[n0va91TSI]

wow, check your grounds, and especially the wiring on that stereo. Make sure that there's nothing touching the body (grounding when it's not supposed to)...

this is really weird... might want to try moving wires around to see if there are any you can find that are shorted internally...

There's someone up here that has wiring diagrams, (Chris Fullwood, IIRC) ask him for some help. See if you can find a wiring diagram that is for the brake switch/system... sounds like something in the series could have gone bad (also make sure the brake pedal isn't binding/pinching any wires).

I tapped off my stereo for my boost gauge and now my car battery dies and when i drive it everything dims and somtimes stuff doesnt light up right away. Explain more about this stereo grounding I think its my problem and i didnt understand what you meant

 

[Mikelb]

I tapped off my stereo for my boost gauge and now my car battery dies and when i drive it everything dims and somtimes stuff doesnt light up right away. Explain more about this stereo grounding I think its my problem and i didnt understand what you meant

Ok, which wire did you tap off of?

I really suggest tapping the boost gauge off of the dimmer switch. If not there are a few other places you can wire it.

The reason I suggested looking at the stereo wiring, is because Sytrus' CD player remained on when everything else dimmed.

Though most aftermarket stereos are required to be chassis grounded, and if he hadn't grounded it properly it could cause problems. For some reason I was thinking that his A/F gauge was wired into the stereo (or that the stereo had just been wired into the car ). Also, if you cross a few wires (doing the stereo) weird things can happen.

In this case, I'm gonna go with Spln_Hrd as this sounds a little more feasible.

Nova, give me some more details on what's happening and any recent modifications. Also, check your fuses. Which wire did you tap the boost gauge into? I'm assuming it's a mechanical boost gauge and is just tapped for the backlight?

^my pre-diagnosis is, you have it tapped to a constant 12V source, instead of a switched source. Check that and let me know.

 

[sytrus]

hey guys, just checking back in. Yea I took out the player and checked all the ground and didn't find anything. I also checked my fuses and found absolutely nothing wrong (which makes sense because all the lights still work), I also checked under the hood to make sure that the positive terminal wasn't touching anything. Now as far as my taillights i didn't have anything else go out on them, I pulled the wiring diagram and checked them all nothing was out. It seems that the one thing I need to check is to literallly unplug the cd player all together and see if it helps... if it doesn't then it will at least narrow it down to the fact that it has nothing to do with it. I'll keep you posted.

p.s.

Thanks for all the help.