Weird electrical problem
 

Hey everyone, so last night while driving I noticed my fog lights weren't on even though the fog dash light was illuminated. I came out of the car to check the fogs and I noticed none of the parking lights were working. I checked the fuses for "TAIL" as that fuse is for the parking lights. It was blown, so I replaced it with the same fuse and it instantly blew. I tried a bigger fuse and the fuse started smoking up. I also took a look at the fog light fuses and both the left side and right side fuses were fine.

Anyone have any idea what's going on? A short or something?

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Using all stock bulbs? Do anything lately that could have pinched a wire? Parked in a field where there could be rodents (not a joke)?

The only stock bulbs are the side markers and the DRLs, everything else is LED. When I changed my licence plate bulbs to LEDs I had to increase the TAIL fuse a few amps, it's been like that for about 3 months. My fogs are also LED and only consume about 20w each, which is way less than what the stock fogs pull.

I'll take a look in the trunk for any pinched wires, my subwoofer box does tend to slide around time to time, maybe it pinched something who knows. Either that or a faulty/shorted LED bulb I guess

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Not just the amps to consider. You may have blown a ballast for the LEDs. I would start there before tracing to many wires.

I figured it out, one of the licence plate bulbs went bad:
http://uploads.tapatalk-cdn.com/2016...503680a26e.jpg

It created a short which melted the wiring at the bulb harness:
http://uploads.tapatalk-cdn.com/2016...3cb5b1eed7.jpg

I'm going to repair the harness and get a replacement bulb. I replaced the fuse and everything works again, even the fogs. It seems that somehow the TAIL fuse is also linked the the fog lights' functionality somehow, as I experimented and found that when the TAIL fuse is blown/missing, the fogs won't turn on.

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When I read the above, I immediately knew the following:


When going from the stock LP lights to the LEDs the current should NOT have gone UP.


And when I read that you had a problem but just kept putting bigger & bigger fuses in, I was tempted to be an ass and say "just stick a penny in it!"

@Tcoat will know what I am talking about

Moral support from @Tcoat ......... and you figured it out ........:w00t:


humfrz

YIKES! ...... are you behind times ....... :(

Yes, for house type fuse boxes, we used to put a penny behind the fuse.

For older automobiles, we would put a spent .22 cal cartridge in the fuse slot.

However, with todays fuse blocks, the redneck way is to jump the fuse slot with a piece of bailing wire.

THEN, go looking for the smoking electrical piece ....... while having a beer ..... :cheers:


humfrz

SO.. You jest.. However I had a short happen in some of my custom wiring and eventually did just that on an unloaded circuit to see if it still shorted and went hot as I was out of fuses to blow. Did eventually trace the short to a DC head which I guess shorted inside the male connector head.

...because YELLING your explanation wasn't CONDESCENDING enough?

SOMEtimes I use ALL CAPS, and sometimes I use BOLD.


One thing I AM Certain of is that it is MORE anOYYing when people bitch about IT.

And I HARDLY THINK USING TWO WORDS IN CAPS CONSTITUTES YELLING


I mean it COULD be worse

Oh come on you two. We all know that old school automotive fuses required cigarette pack foil wrapped around them when they blew.

I do recall a moment of fear when a buddy was having issues with the fuses in his AMC Javelin. He said he kept blowing fuses and asked if I could take a look. Crawled up under the steering column where the box was, took one look and rapidly exited and unhooked the battery. Apparently he did not grasp the concept of what a "spent" cartridge was and there about 14 inches from his crotch was a full .22 LR round crammed into an over heating brake light circuit.

Yeah but if it blew, he'd've known it.

Stu, you're one special snowflake.

fify

http://i.imgur.com/n4dtO5o.png

Says the self declared asshole...

I thought we always got along:iono: