matts86fc3s

so i was working on the car trying to figure out my my "illumination" fuse kept blowing out. i still dont know why. ive got 2 ideas why it might be (1). some of the features of the headlight switch dont work, thus causing a short or surge of power. or (2) i remember after we installed a cd player in a freinds car his illumination fuse kept blowing, and i have dont a full cd player and stereo system in my car... but i dont know why that would mess up the illumination, my guess is there was a wire pertaining to the illumation fuse that lit up the buttons on the stock radio and the install kit doesnt compensate for that wire. but anyway... so i kept blowing the illumination fuse so i did some checks. i kept blowing the stock 15 amp fuse... so i put a 20 amp in and it blew... so i put a 30 amp fuse in and i didnt blow so i know i was looking for something screwing up and making between 15 amps and 30 amps. oh yeah... plus my rear tailights werent working. so i first turned key on ignition off and played with different options to see if it would blow.. didnt blow... so i figured ide come back to that later and work on getting my tail lights working... so i open that hatch and pull the carpet back... ground my test light and by that time i smelled plastic burning... and heard slight crackling sounds... so i look at my guage cluster and theres smoke pouring out from behind my headlight cluster surround where my headlight switches are... so im freaking out and i dont have a screwdriver handy to take it off so im running around looking for water and i remembered the spray bottle of water i had used the night before to tint my windows... so i start squirting up under the dash and that wasnt doing any good. so i finally found a screwdriver and took the assembly off and and doused it with water... nothing got messed up except the connections to the headlight switch were melted togetehr... i heard something before on a different thread about the headlight switches on these cars going bad sometimes.... anyone know about this problem????

toplessFC3Sman

spraying water on an electrical fire... true, its only 12V, but still...

i.didnt.do.it

yeah. its one of those thing you learn reading up on these cars. its a common thing for the headlight switch to go bad, just like the struts for our hatches are supposed to open the hatch up. these things are almost 20 years old. you might want to do a little reading up on them before you start switching out 15 amp fuses for 30 amp. theres a reason why they are 15 amp.

matts86fc3s

haha. oops let me clear that up... i disconnected both battery terminals (i just had them barely squezed on there cuase ive been working on it) so i sprayed water on it after i disconnected the battery. and i did the fuse thing to get an idea of how much current i was pulling becuase i let a buddy borrow my ohmeter a few hours earlier. i know its not the best way and nobody does that but since illumation is a direct battery fuse and not ignition i was trying to find if one of my many accessories i had in the car i.e. cd player, amp, glow gauges, bla bla..., the car had some wiring problems when i got it. so im in the process of fixing them