So I'm chillin...pulling away from the curb at my mother's school...turn my lights on...they come on and go off right away! After recovering from my mild heart atack, I turn them off and try again. I realized the headlights would go on, but most of my interior lights (gauges, climate control knobs, cig lighter) were out. The clock was still on, and the little LEDs on the climate control were still on, and my turn signals/E-Brake/seat belt lights lit up in my console. Wait...it gets weirder.

So I figured it was a fuse...check...the "small light" fuse was burned like no other. So I put a 10 in (should be 15) to see if it would burn that...no lights...no burnt fuse. So I put another 15 in...lights come on quickly, I hear the "hey your lights are on STUPID" ding, and then they go back out. I check the fuse...burnt to a crisp! This makes no sense to my father, or me for that matter!

 

Sounds like you need to get your DMM & start looking for a short.

 

ummm....how do I go about that?

 

i had the same problem, i found out that it was my "ILLUMINATION" (orange) wire for my radio grounding out on bare metal. i didnt have a use for it so i just left the wire hanging without taping it up and it caused the small light fuse to keep going out everytime it touched the metal bracket inside the center console. maybe u should check that...

 

Electrical troubleshooting 101:

There's 2 kinds of problems. Open circuits & short circuits. An open circuit is like when a wire is broken or disconnected, but not touching anything. So it acts like it's switched off.

Yours sounds like a short circuit. For example some insulation is worn thru, and the bare metal in a wire is touching (shorting) any metal stuff in the car. Trouble is, it could be anywhere in that circuit and you've got to find it. Once you find it you can fix it with electical tape.

You've already got it narrowed down to the lights. Find a circuit drawing for your lights, locate the wiring harnesses & plugs that are in that circuit. You can unplug parts of the circuit & try it. If you unplug (for example) the front-right lights, and it doesn't blow the fuse when you turn it on, then you've narrowed down the area that you have to look. If you've got a multi-meter (DMM) you can use it to measure continuity to ground instead of turning on your lights (& blowing fuses) again & again.

Eventually you are looking for a wire that's got broken insulation & it's touching metal. Done any work on the car lately? Look around for a wire that got pinched when you put it back together. Or a wire that's just dangling, & finally it starts touching some metal...

 

both of those answers help ALOT! Considering I took the gague cluster out recently, I'm going to START by looking there...I don't think it'd be the radio wire...just because my radio is still working (doing strange hings, but that's par for the course with the stupid AIWA p.o.s I have).

 

Update: Checked the radio wires just for fun...saw that the orange one looked a little bit bare...covered up anything that looked even a little bit exposed. After that I put a fuse in and everything worked fine. The lesson for today you ask? Eat your vegetables, take your vitamins, and don't leave unused wires just hanging there. :thumbup: