Taillight question
 

Im having an electrical problem and cant find out what it is. My dash lights quit working all of a sudden, I replaced the fuse because it was burnt up. On my car..........The dash lights, rear running lights, and front corner lights are all tied into one fuse. Also, on my car, to turn on your interior lights, you have to turn the knob all the way to the left until it clicks. Well, everytime I put the fuse in to fix my problem with the taillights and stuff, I had to turn the knob all the way to the left as if I was turning on the interior light to get the dash lights to come on. I used the same size fuse that was in it which is a 15 amp fuse and right when i closed my door the new fuse burnt up. Ive done this about 8 times and it keeps burning fuses. Im thinking that this fuse is too small to run all three of those, is this true? Or maybe I could be shorting out on something but not sure....Its a 97 Mustang GT. I would think it would be a 30 amp or 35 amp fuse. I pulled the headlight switch out and all of the wires are connected and it doesnt look like it is shorting out against metal or anything. Let me know what you think.

RE: Taillight question
 

Sounds like the door switch is shorting out if it blows when you close the door. Might be loose or something allowing the hot lead to touch the body when the switch gets shoved in by the door. Pull the fuse and the interior bulb then check continuity at the load side of the fuse socket while slowly oeprating the plunger on the door switch to confirm this. Make sure the headlight switch is off. You can find the load side of the fuse by touching a voltmeter to ground and each side of the fuse socket, the side that has 12V is the line side, the side that shows no voltage is the load side. Leave your meter touching the load side and ground to check continuity while operating the door switch by hand. You should not have continuity.

Do not install a bigger fuse! The fuse is there to protect the wiring and is sized accordingly making the fuse the weakest electrical link. Upsizing the fuse will move the"weakest link" part of the circuit to some other device or wire in the system that will cost more money an dtake more time to replace than a fuse. Worst case you couldstart a fire (don't ask me how I know).

God bless,

-BunnMan

RE: Taillight question
 

lol, there is one problem there. When I slammed my door one time, it knocked that door switch through the hole and into the door. So, I just went in there manually and disconnected the switch from the harness because I couldnt get that damn dinging to stop. It was dinging continuously.

RE: Taillight question
 

ok, I bought a new headlight switch and installed it. When i hooked the battery back up to the car and turned the switch on, the switch itself started smoking pretty badly but the lights did come on....Any idea y it would be doing this? Im lost when it comes to electrical....

RE: Taillight question
 

bump, someone help, I have to get my lights working because I leave workat dark and I DONT need a ticket