um, hate to be a dick, but if you go back and reread nicks post youll see that we didnt cause the short FORDS DESIGN DID … and considering we checked everything posible and copuldnt locate the problem we had to over fuse it
it was night time and nick had no tail lights, we put in a fuse that was only 5 over reccomended and it wasnt popping
i seam to remember that he HAD to leave , but if forget where it was that he had to be, not having a car is usual not a good idea when u have shit to do
im not saying there wasnt a reason to do it. Im just saying its a bad idea regardless of who caused the problem. If the fuse blows when u put it in then that means theres something wrong, putting in a bigger fuse is just gonna fuck it up more.
:word: Did the same thing, overfused a 78 chevy pickup harness…lit the whole underside of the dash up…me dumbass. Had a short somewhere in the line that kept popping the fuses. Did you ever read how many cranking AMPS a battery has. Now dump that through a wiring harness using a piece of metal as a fuse. HOLY SHITTT!:eek:
I agree here… if theres a certain size fuse in there it means the circuit cant handle anymore w/out being damaged, now, most companies will probably add a certain amount of tolerance in there… 5 amps maybe? I’d hope atleast… If I was designing a car’s electrical system I would atleast… anywho, point is like boardjnky4 says if you throw a bigger fuse in there melting an easily accessible wire is the least of your problems… finding the potentially fucked up control module (BCM, ECU, Lock modules, alarm modules, etc) and paying out the ass for a new one is the big problem… all in all, dont up the fuse size. ever. for anyone that doesnt already know this…
That comes from experience, people bring their cars in saying that thats what they did… or you go and look for a blown fuse… and they are all good but one of them is 3x the size it should be… either way its a nightmare to find out where the problem is…
I doubt your troubles were caused by an extra 5 amps (although the other guy said it was a 30 instead of a 10 which could def cause bigger problems)… 5 amps might make the wire warm up a bit w/ the extra juice… but I doubt it’d melt all that away and any serious problem would have just immediately blown the fuse again… But still, put the right size fuse back in and wire it up w/ a relay off a bigger power source maybe your constant off your ignition harness, or depending on how much power youre drawing just run a power from your battery to a distribution block under your dash…
anywho if you need a hand or have questions about wiring that up the right way shoot me a PM or ask on here or whateva.
well guys, i pulled that harness out on the hatch, and sure enough…THANK YOU FORD FOR DESIGNING SHIT CARS…three wires with the casing rubbed away and exposed wire…PROBLEM SOLVED
glad to hear uve found the problem. I think you will be much happier with ur car once all the wiring is sound
if you still wanted to make your gauges come on with your dash lights, you can just use that same head unit illumination circuit to trigger a relay.
good to see ya figured it out though.
woo hoo.
So whats your fix? New wires and lots of duct tape?
thats exactly what mine looked like when it went up in smoke.
follow it up until the wires are good (both directions) cut and replace. solder and shrink tubing :tup:
well guys, it gets worse. i replaced the harness pictured, soldered it up real nice and taped everything thouroughly. checked the fuse sockets for continuity again, and all three still had it on ONE side this time, not both, so only half the problem was fixed. started tracing the harness down the floor on the driver side toward the back, melted there too, but that section unplugs, so we did so just to see if it still gets contuniuty, which it did, tomarrow im taking the fuse panel out to see what else i fuckin find, im so pissed off right now the car is fucking like done right now…:rant: x 100000000000. now the harness toward the back really only had one bad wire exposed, which can be slavaged with lots of tape/shrink tube. im only hoping whatever i find tomarrow is the same way, and accessible enough that i can fix it. i want to die right now. someone shoot me in the face and end my misery :rant:
:-/ Need another hand, man? Im seriously just a call away. Im free after 4 tomorrow if you need someone.
Get yourself an ohm meter and make sure none of the wires are shorted to ground that are not supposed to be. Shit Shack $20. Saved me alot of headaches. You will also be able to track down the bad wire. Sometimes it will be in a spot somewhere else on the frame you didn’t think could be a prob. lol.
^^ thats what ive been doing
:word: ohms=continuity
One thing that stuck out to me in your original post.
“quick pop the hood and disconnect the battery and the car dies out”
Any car with a good alternator should keep running with the battery disconnected as far as I know. Once it is running, you can pull the battery out and the alternator keeps it all going.
Just found that odd is all…
:word: hes absolutely right, but this wiring problem could tie into that
any car thats on a perfect tune at least … if its not running perfect and the alternator isnt charging the battery at that moment, sometimes it can stumble b4 the alternator ramps up its output, causeing the car to die
but at the same time, if you do a “best out of 3” test, it should stay running 2 out of 3 times
not if you disconnect the ground… which is the one you should always diconnect…
Every car is different, I left my truck running when I took my battery completely out (Same for a 96’ saturn, 90’ shadow, and 89 taurus), and exchanged it at the auto store some cars will run, others won’t.
… the ground on the battery supplies the ground to the vehicle… the chassis is only a ground because its connected to the (-) post on the battery.