Hi Folks,

I recently rebuilt the hatch pull down unit for the second time (the first one was one of those cheap clear plastic housings and it broke pretty quickly thanks to the hatch being out of adjustment. I also repaired the wiring for my cooling fans.

All was well for two drives. Suddenly, I was putting my hatch down and it quit working. Further checks reveal that my lights are not working - no headlights, no fog lights, no interior convenience lights.

It seems there are multiple fused groups here that are out which leads me to believe the fault is upstream of the fuse box. I have a wiring diagram showing that, for example, the headlights and foglights get power from an always-hot circuit with fusible links.

My question is: where are these fusible links located? And any hints on what else to look for? As background there is also an aftermarket alarm and security/door lock system "installed" it is laying on the floor and wired in with wire nuts lol. I had already planned to just pull the seat out, and get under there with the alarm wiring schematic to remove it and restore all that wiring to the way it belongs - but I don't think this issue is related to my lack of power to the convenience lighting or headlights and foglights?

It will be about a week before I can dedicate some time to it but I do have multimeter and will travel lol.

 

Fusible links are at the starter. Acoupla Big Red Wires are used to feed battery into the cabin, including the fuse box and all the other things that aren't fused, like the headlight switch and ignition switch. Each one feeds about half of the car. The fusible links are short pieces of wire about 4 gauges smaller than the ones they protect, with particularly heat-resistant insulation, designed not to catch fire etc. when they do their job by melting like any fuse does (the word "fuse" means "melt" after all). They're color-coded; the ones in our cars are usually "rust", sort of a dull brown-orange. You buy them by their color. I think "rust" ones are 16 gauge, to protect 12 gauge wire, butt don't hold me to that.

Yes, wiring laying on the floor held together with wire nuts, may be related. I'd suggest cleaning all of that up - getting rid COMPLETELY of any and all "alarm" systems - before troubleshooting further. It's not impossible that THAT thing has disabled something critical.