Recently my dash lights and tail lights went out, so I started tracking down the problem and discovered that the fuse is blown. That was all clear and made sense; however, there is a white electrical wire jammed into the fuse socket with that fuse (and a yellow wire elsewhere in the fuse box).
I bought this car from a guy who obviously had even less knowledge about electronics than I do, so I’m wondering what is going on with this wire. Is it supposed to be there? What does it do? When putting in the new fuse can I just jam the wire in, or do I need to locate it someplace with precision purity?
Did you try to take the wire out and see if anything bad happens? But I wouldn’t jam the wire in because it might start one of your other wires on fire? I has happended to me before, because the guy I bought my car from had a bunch of shit jammed into my fuse box, and half of the wires where worthless.
I replaced the fuse without sticking the wire back in (as you suggested) and the new fuse blew as soon as I turned the lights on. To me, this means that either the white wire is necessayd (which is odd considering that nobody else seems to have it) or there is a short someplace in the circuit. Does anybody have a circuit diagram that could help me diagnose the problem? Anything else? I simply don’t have the money to take this to a shop, nor do I really have a clue what I am doing by myself.
A little more information on the white wire. I followed it while looking for a short and found it connected to two other wires. The three wires are coated in about 6 inches of electrical tape at the union, and dead end there. Following the other two (orange and yellow) to their other ends showed that the orange wire goes nowhere, and the yellow wire goes to the radio fuse (10A). If that helps diagnose the problem, excellent. Otherwise, what could the point of this possible be? My weak understanding of electronics causes me to think that it’s absolutely worthless.
sounds like someone tried to wire up their stereo to the fuse box. for example, it seems like they tried to tap into the parking lights for the illumination, and the power for the stereo. another possibility could be that the white wire went to an alarm brain.
what kind of stereo is in there now? if its aftermarket, i would try taking it out and seeing if its wired up correctly so nothing on the stereo is making the parking light fuse blow.
When I bought the car it had (I believe) a mid-90’s Accord stereo. Since then I have removed that and installed an aftermarket CD player. That was all done properly.
Are you saying that this connection of three wires could be shorting and blowing the fuse? If so, how come I’ve been driving the car for approaching three years and nothing happened until now? Dumb luck?
see if any wires are loose and touching each other. check all the wires for your corner lights and tailights. make sure nothing is getting pinched and ground itself out.
Remove all wireing that is not oem, the wire that went to the HU, [ 10amp] is more then likely the constant power for the HU, also there is an illumination wire at the oem radio harness, make sure, if its not being used for the aftermarket HU, that it is capped off, [ it is on the same fuse as the dash/parklights] Link www.installdr.com for radio harness wire colors. :hmm:94