My 88 GTA died on me a few weeks ago. Found a fried fusible link at the starter. Replaced FL, started car in driveway, let it get to operating temp, let the radiator fan come on a few times, tested everything. Everything was working OK.

Then... took the car out for a drive. Drove about 3/4 of a mile, starting, stopping. Then, while driving, blue, smelly smoke started coming in from the driver's side dash and air vents. Coasted into a gas station. Car was totally dead.

Got some help and pushed it back onto the street, and coasted downhill from there into my driveway. Checked, and the FL was fried again.

The first time it died a few weeks ago, I still had the dome light, and parking lights, and the headlights came on but didn't flip up.

But now I have no power to anything.

Hooked up another FL this morning. Turned on key. Snap! Same FL fried immediately.

So now it's worse than before. Before I had some accessories. Now nothing! Guess I could check the fuses.

I looked at all the wires that are near the fuse box. Nothing looks melted. I hope the smoke was just leaking in from the FL. A 12 awg extension wire I put in also fried, btw, but it was the 16 awg FL that broke.

I'm going to take it to a mech. I've had enough. But I was wondering if anyone had any ideas about what the problem would be. The FL that fried is the one that feeds 2 red wires that go up into the loom.

Thanks

GTA88

 

Sounds like you have a chafed wire under the dash somewhere.

 

never, ever replace a fusible link without resolving why it blew in the first place

 

Sounds like something blew your link in the first place, you need to find out what did that b4 replacing the fusible link or it will do it again.

Personally it sounds like you have a wire in your dash that is exposed and either touching another wire or grounding out on something. I would pull the dash and take a look at the wiring.

 

I checked the fusebox and found the 20 amp fuse for the horn, dome light, and computer had blown. It had not blown the first time the fuse link fried.

I checked the red wires in the loom, that the fuse link fed. They looks OK, no melting anywhere.

Now I am hoping to find some chafed wire(s) behind the dash that is causing the fuse link and the 20 amp fuse to blow.

Do I have to lower the steering column to get the dash out far enough ?

 

If you have tilt just tilt the wheel down as far as it will go. I didn't have to drop the column to get mine out when i did my front speakers and changed a couple bulbs behind the cluster. You may have to worm it out a little but it will come out fairly easily. I believe the dash parts are held in with 7mm bolts.

 

Hmmm.... the dome light fuse....

The dome lights get hard battery at all times on one side of the bulb, then the door switches and dimmer switch ground the other side to turn them on. So if that fuse is blown, there's a possibility that the damaged wire in question is one that goes to the dome lights (including the ones under the dash above the driver's and passenger's feet).

The wire in question is orange. AFAIK there are no other orange wires in the interior of the car. I'd look at every orange wire under there very carefully as well as the light fixtures themselves; that has a high probability of being the source of the problem.

 

Theres more than one orange wire in the interior of these cars, I've got about 4 or 5 of them.

 

Just for the sake of the archives, I want to mention that I DID find some chafed wires under the dash, as RB and Abird4u suggested. A loom of wires wrapped in electrical tape was wedged up against a very rough bracket. It's the bracket that holds the tie bar for the dash near the driver's feet. The bracket had rubbed right through the tape and through 2 wires, exposing copper, and of course, shorting out !... 3 other wires in the same area are also damaged without copper showing.

Thanks to RB and Abird4u, and the other guys who helped.
:hail: