I turned on my lights Wednsday night, and to my surprise, no guage lights. The things had worked 2 days before I know for a fact. I had just got done adding some lights to my dash vents and now the guage lights don't work. I can move the adjustment **** up and down, but it does nothing. I checked the fuse, and it was blown. I added another fuse and it blew instantly. So I guess there is a short somewhere. I checked the dimmer switch, and as far as I know, there is power going from the headlight switch, to the dimmer switch, then, from there, it goes into a massive mammoth wire loom.
From that point, I have lost it. Then, I know there is power going to the fuse panel to blow a fuse, so ultimately I am guessing that the power going from the fuse to the lights is shorted.
I checked the color of the wires going to and from the fuse panel for the inst. lights, and they are on the plugs that go into the guages to light the lights. So I stuck a 10 fuse in reall fast and checked the wires that go to the plugs. One must be ground and the other had about .7??V so I guess it is shorting, or else it wouold have a lot more power than that. There are other wires on the plugs that have a small voltage as well, but those are don around .3??V . The 10 fuse got a little hot, so it's definately a short. I didn't leave the power going to the fuse on any longer than I had to to check the plug terminals for power, so hopefully I didn't screw anything else up.

This is about all I have found in the first 10 minutes of splunking in the depths that is my dash.

I am pretty much stumped. The lights I put in don't even come close to where this problem is. I don't understand it.

Oh, is there a wire for the radio dimmer that could be shorting? I never put that wire on my radio. Would it be possible that it has somehow managed to find a ground in the year and a half that it had been sitting there ungrounded?
I'll go see if that is a possability. If not, I am just going to put a flashlight in the car until I get this figured out.

Thanks for any help you can give.
I doubt it got a short somewhere inside the wire loom, so I just need to start following the wires as close as I can to see if there is a problem on some of the unexposed wires.

 

wiring diagrams and some other info on the dashlights are avaliable at:

http://www.geocities.com/modularmoto...gen/dashlights

 

Well, this was me before

This is me now :rockon: :lala:

Turns out it was the dimmer wire that goes to the radio all along. I can't believe I forgot about that wire a year ago when I installed the radio, and just thought about it now. It has been disconected and bouncing around in that pod for a year and just now it decided to ground and short my lights. I've got a 10 fuse in right now, but I will be making a trip to buy some more fuses so I will have the right one in there.

It's funny how you can't think of a possible solution until you strart typing on here, but then you suddenly think of that one variable and it turns out to be it.

Case closed. "Take em' away toys" - Cheif Wiggum