First its an 87 Iroc-z28.

So yesterday my father and I were replacing my bulbs in my breaklights when the fuse died. So I changed the fuse and they started working fine. But then when we went to shut the back hatch, all of a sudden my dash lights went out.

I went to check the fuse box, and of course most of the fuse's letters are smudged off.

Does it sound like a fuse (which is what my brother said) or possibly the wiring(what my father says)?

Input is much appreciated.

 

well putting in a fuse is a lot simpler than running checks on every wire in the system.
do the simple first.

 

to check for a fuse you need to pull each fuse off with the ignition switch off and measure the resistance or visually inspect them if you can. that would be the for sure way to eliminate a fuse issue but you may have a wiring problem if the fuse blew when you shut the hatch.

 

sounds like i could be a fuse check that first

 

My dad has a tester, and we tried testing the one I thought it was.
But like I said, im not sure which fuse goes to my dash because of the letters being rubbed off.

 

go to auto zones web site and register its free you can pull up a wire diagram of the fuse panel its free i cant remember exactly where i did it last night so its there you will just have to look for it. once you do that you should be able to figure out which one it is

 

also like i said the for sure way without a wiring diagram is to check each fuse individually out of the fuse box

 

I think im going to do that today after I get out of class. It just sucks to have to go through them all.

Thanks for your help.

I hope its just a fuse.

 

No problem but seriously you have to have a lot of patience with these cars if you don't like trouble shooting and tinkering with cars you might want to get another car. ive had cooling problems electrical problems, which im currently working on. Dont get me wrong i love my car wont ever buy a another one. I guess what im trying to say is you better get use to doing stuff like pulling out all of the fuses to check them or buy a service manual wich i recomend greatly. Dont take this wrong but when you said that you were in class i assumed you are in your teens early 20's just sharing some been there done that experence. 87 GTA trans-am