I have no courtesy lights, lighter, horn, rear defrost or constant power to my radio (though I do have ignition power, so the radio is rigged to turn on so long as the car is running). When I tried to change the fuse for the dome & lighter........the car tried to start! I just bought the car about a month ago, and all I know is that the owner before the guy I bought it from was a volunteer firefighter, and he had replaced the front turn indicators with blue lights, and put 2 additional lighters in the dash (presumably to plug in more lights). I'm positive there is a short somewhere, but can anyone tell me anything about this, perhaps where to find the short? I have traced all the courtesy light wires to the firewall, then I cannot tell where everything is going from the connector under the hood. Should I just run a new constant power wire to the lighters & radio? Any help would be much appreciated.

 

Bump for you

 

do you have a powered hatch? the hatch is grounded through the solenoid on the starter for the switched 12v start. The only time that solenoid becomes hot is when 12v is switched to it. otherwise it is a ground. sounds like a malfunction in the setup somewhere making a short thats why the car is trying to start. ???? just a thought.

 

Hey, no power hatch. I forgot to list the car details, '82 Sport Coupe, 2.8 2BBL. Someone had suggested to look on the lower steering column for any suspicious splices, but I didn't see anything there either. Thanks for your suggestion though - Vinny.

 

There's nothing like a wiring diagram, and I don't have yours before me, but I think the crank signal is a yellow wire going out from the ignition switch. This turns into red before it goes into the gear selector switch, and becomes purple on the way out from the switch and to the solenoid. If it only tries to start with the gear in park and neutral then the fault is at the yellow/red section. If it also tries to start with the car in gear then the fault is at the purple section. Look for chafing and/or melted insulation.

 

OK, so I tried to put the fuse in with the car in gear, and the dome lights came on and the car did not try to start. Then I put it back in Park, put the fuse back in, and again, the dome is on and it did not try to start. I started the car, shut it down, tried the lighter and opened both doors to check the dome.....it's all working just fine now? Don't know what I touched to fix it, but we'll see what happens on my ride to work. However, the rear defroster is still not working and I still need a constant wire to my radio. As I recall, there was a thick yellow wire back there that was going to nothing, when I tested it for voltage, I got nothing. Could this be my constant power? Thanks you for the suggestion......somehow it solved half the problem, any takers on the rest?

 

Ouch.. I'd be wary of the starter activating at any time.. Try reducing the ctsy fuse size to 10 Amps or less to make it likely to blow if it happens to activate the starter again, until you find the culprit. The ctsy wires are orange I think, and should provide constant power to the radio. The radio fuse delivers switched power to the radio through a (thin) yellow wire. Don't know much about the defroster circuit.

 

Well, I went to work, got dinner and now I'm back at my garage, and so far the lights still work, and thankfully the car has not tried to start on it's own! So providing that when I wake up tomorrow and that there is no problem, I should just jump the constant power off, let's say, the lighter, onto the radio? That's kind of what I was assuming to do from the beginning for sake of ease, but is that the way it's actually suppose to be? Also forgot to mention, in addition to the defroster still not doing anything, I still have no horn. I am wondering though, if the defroster is disconnected at, let's say, the glass, would it just not work? I have not checked it out yet, the thought just popped into my head, I'll have to look tomorrow. But I threw in a 20 Amp for courtesy, I think there was a blown 15 when I bought the car. The car tried to start instantly when I tried to put the fuse in (I really never even got it in all the way because I was too busy laughing that the car tried to start!), I think I may be safe now, but like I said, we'll see what tomorrow brings!! Thanks again to everybody for your help! Any ideas on the horn and defroster??

 

The e.z way of getting out of this is to get a cut off for your battery. I had to do this because something is draining my battery that I can't find. If i did not use the car for 2 days the battery went dead. So I put it on the neg. side of the battery and took the ground off the fender. I now have a good starting battery when I get into my car. Utill I can figure out what is draining my battery. Hope this helped you some.....kachina in vegas

 

Ummm..... no.

The EASY way to get out of this, is to UN-RIG the car. Put all the wires back like they belong. Then figure out what was wrong with it in the first place, that made some hack decide to get in there and start hacking on the wires.

The car worked fine when it was new, with the wires just like they came. There's no reason that whenever you find whatever broke about it that the hack got the bright idea that the right answer for it was to hack the wiring instead of repair the problem, that the wires should need to be ANY DIFFERENT from how they were built.

Most likely, the whole starting thing is because whatever wires are hacked up, are hooked together somewhere, causing the courtesy lights circuit to cross-feed to the starter solenoid circuit. Clearly caused by the hacking. Un-hack everything, and it will stop that. Then it won't be near as hard to find whatever went wrong in the first place, and started this downward spiral of confusion.

In NO CASE would the correct answer be, hack on it some more. One good hack DOES NOT deserve another.

 

LOL, you are absolutely right, I have unhacked everything.....at least that I can tell. Day 2 and the lights are still working and my Camaro did not burst in to flames trying to start itself!! Pretty good start so far. But anyways, the only things I'm not 100% on, as far as unhacking, are 1. The radio's constant should be split from the same positive as the lighter? 2. There is a very thick yellow wire behind the radio that goes no where, it hasn't since I bought the car, any ideas?? Other than that, I think the horn and rear defrost might be separate issues from the courtesy lamp debacle. Any ideas would be great, thanks again!

 

1. Right: that's the battery feed off of the courtesy lights circuit (orange wire), that keeps the clock and memory alive.

2. Very thick yellow = starter. Probably has something to do with an auto trans if you have a stick, or a stick if you have an auto.

What's wrong with the courtesy light ckt?

Yes the horn and defogger are completely separate from the courtesy lights. The low-power (control) side of the defogger is fed from ignition, and the high-power side is fed from the junction block up above the parking brake release; off of a battery tie point on the littler terminal board IIRC.

 

I think the courtesy light problem is solved, I ran around all day and so far, no problems! Thank you all again for your help!!! Now the rear defroster, can you tell me what color wires I'm looking for so I can try to run them back to these circuits you are telling me about? The thick yellow wire probably is for the tranny, it's auto and that area is another hack job, the button is always pushed in so I just slide right through the gears, not worried about it now though. Anyone know about the horn? Thanks again, can't say it enough, you've all been a huge help to me!