Dash lights, Gauge Lights nightmare

[Harriz801]

For the past three days i have been trying to figure out why all the lights on my dash have stopped working, including my a/c controls, rear wiper buttons, gauges and cigirette lighter... but all of my warning lights still work like brake light, CEL light and all those...

I was taking the screen out of my dash and then all the sudden it stopped working.... but i figured out the problem with the screen... now im getting to the dash lights and notice that my gauge fuse inside isnt blown but replaced it anyway. Then i went under the hood and saw my taillight fuse was blown? weird then put in another one and then that blew.... so i put in a 20 amp and never had problems with it blowing again.... so now all my running lights work besides my dash lights... including speedo, tach and all the stuff.

If anyone could help me it would be greatly appreciated

 

[91orangeGST]

Sounds like you may be shorting out somewhere to cuase the stock amp fuse to blow. You may have a lose wire or pinched one when replacing your screen

 

[1gjosh]

could it be your dimmer? .

 

[Defiant]

The taillight fuse is the one that feeds the gauges. Find your short.

 

[Harriz801]

Thats what i figured.. some wire is grounded out... is there any way to find a grounded out wire without tracing the wire the whole way?... also when i checked to see if i had power at my gauge fuse with a test light i had no power.. but i guess thats not an accurate reading... ill check it with a multi meter tomorrow.

 

[90gst_sean]

you really dont want to use bigger fuses!!! I did the same thing in my first car and it went bad, REALLY BAD. It was the same place; right there with my radio.

Little wires like to melt into other wires when they get to much juice.

I ended up turning my 92 super charged Ford Thunder chicken into a tail light less cop magnet.

If I remember it was a 30amp, thats all it took. I was inches from stuffing the nozzle of a fire extinguisher in a dash vent and pulling the trigger. Give me a brake, I was 16, and that thing was my life. Lucky for my the smoke stopped by the time I got back with the extinguisher.

 

[injection]

save yourself alot of headaches and just run yourself a brand new wire from the fuse box to wherever the wire goes. then you don't have to play around with tracing out the wire to find out where it's no good, just cut out the wire completely and then run a new wire from the fuse box to the dash lights and you're done

and also i agree with sean up there it is very bad to put a bigger fuse in the box then what manufactuer calls for.

 

[Defiant]

Thats what i figured.. some wire is grounded out... is there any way to find a grounded out wire without tracing the wire the whole way?

You can replace the blowing fuse with a paper clip, then after the noisy big red trucks leave, seek out where the fire had started.

Or, more succinctly: No.

But you won't have to trace it the whole way. Just to where the short is. Hint: start where you were working last.

 

[tom04841]

Hint: start where you were working last.

I would suspect that your problem is where your monitor was. When pulling it out, a wire came loose and made contact with a ground. Find it and fix it.

Placing a bigger fuse is going to make it all the more difficult to find the problem wire.....especially if it burns up other wires from getting too hot.

 

[Harriz801]

Okay... so my buddy and i get farther into it the other day and test all my fuses to make sure im getting proper voltage on each side.. everything was fine... then we moved on to start checking for burnt out lights on my cigarette lighter and center concole light... when we go to check my ciggarette lighter light we find that some how both sides of the wire (negitive and postive) have became postive. We got 12 volts on both wires... now i get out the Haynes manual and trace down every wire to the dimmer switch... the dimmer switch actually went bad and turned both wires to 12 volts.

How this worked i have no idea but it did. So we took the negitve wire of the cigarette lighter light and grounded it and everything worked perfect again! Crazy huh!

 

[Defiant]

Sounds like whatever hot wire you grounded while pulling that screen welded across the dimmer switch.
Of course you had the battery disconnected while you were working on that screen, didn't you.

Or, not.