ok here's the story... I parked my car at work last night and left my lights on. I got out four hours later and the car still started. However, my left headlight wasn't working... I drove it the rest of the way back to my dorm and shut it off. When I did that I noticed that my cd player didn't open up like it usually does. I tried to turn the car back on but nothing happened at all. All power was completely gone cuz the 50 amp master fuse was blown. I replaced that first thing this morning, but I still dont have my left headlight. Also, my tach is freaking out. The whole car has a painless wiring kit... Any ideas at all? I'm completely beat..

 

When volts are down, then amps are up.Fuses are rated in amps. May be why the 50A blew.First thing is to check all the fuses. If good, look for a ground wire that has a poor connection (wiggle them). Is your tach and cd hooked to the same ground or to the same power sorce?

 

tach and cd are seperate and i dont see how recent events could cause a ground to come loose... but i did already check all of them.

 

Maybe not 100% painless!

When an alternator tries to recharge a badly discharged battery, (working at full output) it can often find "weak spots" in the electrical system. Often these weak spots are grounds. When putting cars together we sometimes neglect a good ground system. I would lean towards a ground issue mainly because these aftermarket wiring kits are usually very good. (at least in my experience). I would almost certainly say that the alternator blew the maxi fuse.

Could be that your alternator took a hit and is puting out inconsistant voltage, (or regulator, although I assume you don't have a regulator with your kit)

Still, my first reaction to this issue is thatthe ground system probablly "took a hit" somewhere like maybe between the engine and the body, if the elec sys is looking for a ground, itcould haveblown a headlight in the process. (by grounding through the filament)

 

I forgot to ask you, how many amps is your alternator?

If it is a big amp unit, the chances of it damaging your wires is much higher.

Electricity can be tricky, we don't often think about it going "backwards" through circuits, but it can and does when there are shorts and/or in-effective, or inconsistantgrounds.

 

I think the alternator is throwing so much power at the drained battery that its blowing the crap outa that fuse, and yeah it is a high power alternator to keep up the system... so im going to charge the battery on a charger and then see where i am with the rest of the stuff i guess

 

I'm with JMD on this one, I think there is a couple of ring terminals out front where the pigtails hook into the headlight extansions. Look for these as I think they are screwed into the body. Check them for continuity. There is one or two under the dash also.

 

Is there a way to check a ground for continuity?

 

find out what your damn hood is! I NEED ONE!

 

You could try an ohm meter between two differnt points it might show a problem, but the problemwith using an ohm meter is that the meter uses very little current. The activity of a bad connection can and does change depending on the current passing through the suspect connection.

You might try "bypassing" certain suspect connections using a set of jumper cables. clip one end on one side of the suspect conection and the other end on the other sid of the connection, and the check the circuit for proper opperation. This method might find a bad connection. If you try this you will need to have a set of cables that have clean uncoroded ends as a bad connection will not help you in the trouble shooting process.