velocitykendal
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| posted on 4/12/11 at 02:56 PM |
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Tail light/dash light fuse started blowing
Hi,
Firstly I'd like to apologise in advance for my ignorance, I'm a bit new to kit car ownership having bought a Tiger Avon 2 months ago.
The problem I have is a fuse has started blowing seemingly unprompted by anything. The fuse in question was a 10amp third from the left that is
connected to the tail lights and dash lights. Could anyone offer some advice on how I might troubleshoot this?
Many thanks.
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Jon Ison
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| posted on 4/12/11 at 03:23 PM |
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Hi,
Welcome, as no one is familiar with your electrical set up then its going to be all but impossible to diagnose online.
what else runs from that fuse ? Brake lights ? Horn ? Chances are there is more than one circuit using the fuse, could be a fault absolutely nothing
to do with your tail lights that is giving you the problem ?
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rusty nuts
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| posted on 4/12/11 at 03:30 PM |
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Disconnect all of the tail lights after making a note of which wire goes where, same for dash lights and possibly the front side lights if they are
all covered by the same fuse. Fit a good fuse and reconnect each wire in turn until fuse blows, you should then have some idea where to look for
fault. You could disconnect one circuit at a time but you may go through a lot of fuses. If you have a multimeter that could be used to trace the
fault as well
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jabs
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| posted on 4/12/11 at 04:01 PM |
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Check the wiring to the tail lights, as it's intermittent could be you have a chaffing or trapped wire somewhere.
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loggyboy
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| posted on 4/12/11 at 04:12 PM |
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Check the earths.
99.9% of electrical glitches are bad earths.
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snowy2
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| posted on 4/12/11 at 04:37 PM |
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ditto earth's....next crappy connections.
Also If you have any scotch locks on your wires, remove them completely, jump all over them and then burn them. and promise never ever to use them
again.
personally i would be looking for a trapped wire shorting to earth..........
sometimes you are the pigeon, most of the time the statue.
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velocitykendal
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| posted on 4/12/11 at 05:11 PM |
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Thanks for the tips guys, that's given me something to get started with. I'll let you know how I get on...
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velocitykendal
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| posted on 16/1/12 at 01:22 PM |
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For anyone that might be interested, I've found/sorted the problem now:
After fitting a 35amp fuse where there was previously a 10amp fuse to get me home, the problem got worse and was blowing new 10amp fuses without even
having the ignition on.
So upon inspecting the wiring going to the rear lights I could instantly see that the loom was badly melted. Checking all the light fittings revealed
that a broken number plate light was causing the short. I've now cut out and patched up the damaged bits of wiring to the tail light and
indicators. Just need to buy a new number plate light and inspect the reverse light as that's no longer working.
Incidently the indicators now flash rather rapidly, can anyone think why that might be? They're LED at the rear.
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loggyboy
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| posted on 16/1/12 at 02:16 PM |
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quote:
Originally posted by velocitykendal
For anyone that might be interested, I've found/sorted the problem now:
After fitting a 35amp fuse where there was previously a 10amp fuse to get me home, the problem got worse and was blowing new 10amp fuses without even
having the ignition on.
So upon inspecting the wiring going to the rear lights I could instantly see that the loom was badly melted. Checking all the light fittings revealed
that a broken number plate light was causing the short. I've now cut out and patched up the damaged bits of wiring to the tail light and
indicators. Just need to buy a new number plate light and inspect the reverse light as that's no longer working.
Incidently the indicators now flash rather rapidly, can anyone think why that might be? They're LED at the rear.
The indicator Relay thinks a bulb has blown as the LED bulb current draw is less than a standard bulb. You will need to fit a load resistor (check
ebay) or get a new relay intended for use with LED bulbs.
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velocitykendal
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| posted on 16/1/12 at 05:08 PM |
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quote:
Originally posted by loggyboy
The indicator Relay thinks a bulb has blown as the LED bulb current draw is less than a standard bulb. You will need to fit a load resistor (check
ebay) or get a new relay intended for use with LED bulbs.
O.k. that makes sense, thanks. What doesn't make sense however is why was it (the blink speed) fine before the shorting issue?
And is this what you're referring to?
http://bit.ly/ebay-load-relay
[Edited on 16/1/12 by velocitykendal]
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