I have a 1987 IROCZ I'm having some issues with the wiring in the car. First off the car will not start with the ignition switch (previous owner wired switch off starter) Whenever I turn the key over normal the brake light comes on and nothing happens. Also when you hit the brake the parking lamps come on, along with the gauge back lighting. And finally the blinkers/reverse lights keep blowing the 20a fuse at random. Does anybody have any suggestions about what may be causing these issues? All help is greatly appreciated, thanks!

 

anyone have any suggestions?

 

I'll be perfectly honest with you. There are 2 kinds of cars...

Factory ones that are still unmolested except for a few repairs done by a technician.

AND

Cars that have been cared for by a 'mechanic' or owner who thinks he knows something about cars but .... well you get the idea.

Your car and mine are the latter. One day, your going to try to solve one of your MANY electrical problems. As you find things your going to ask yourself, 'what kind of an idiot would do this to a car'. And that's a good question but not one I can help you with.

You have three options at this point...

1. If the car is not a daily driver, do a resto. IE pull out the interior, dash,what ever else hides wires. Steam clean the the engine bay. Maybe buy a good harness or fix up yours. Get a book with wiring manuals for your car. Do the whole thing right the first time. This is what I plan to do in the next year once I get another vehicle.

2. Just try to fix problems one at a time. This will require you to learn a lot about electronics and you will probably have to pull apart parts of your car more than once. In your case this might be the best option because there's a small chance your problems are related. This is what I've done for the past year and my car works a lot better but there are some problems I'm just not gonna fix without taking everything apart.

3. Buy a replacement low mileage 3rdgen that hasn't been molested and swap all your good parts over.


At the beginning I should have chose #3. I've been working on #2, like I said, makes it better but not perfect. I'll let you know how #1 works in a couple months. Both #1 and #2 you'll learn a lot about electronics or your really fustrate yourself. YMMV.

Ben

 

Ok...hopefully two problems solved....one for sure. It all comes down to the poor job of installing the B&M shifter that the previous owner did, first off the neutral safety switch wasn't wired properly, and second the reverse light switch had a ton of bare wires leading to it. So my car now starts with the key...and I'm going back out now to find out if my turnsignal/backup fuse is still blowing. Now all i need to do is track down my parking lamps illuminating when the brake is depressed

 

Ok the issue with turnsignal/back-up light fuse blowing is now resolved, it was the wires grounding themselves, now on to my last issue, the brake lights wish me luck!

 

Congrats. Gald your problem was easy. How did you find the bare wires?

 

Although wiring is a pain, with:
1. common sense
2. multi meter
3. wiring diagram

You will be able to fix anything. The wiring on these cars is not very difficult to access.

 

Only reason I ask is because I was searching for the same problem. My blinkers would pop fuses. I evntually found it. But I couldn't figure out how to isolate any one of the light so I had to check the wiring to all of them. There is no way to examine the all the wiring between the column and the tail lights without pulling a good bit of your car apart. Just wondering if someone figured out a short cut.