New Car, New Problems...

[Scoobkilla]

Hi,

Bought a 1995 K11 - on reccomendation by my friend who has a super s.

So far I'm loving it - but today it's thrown up an interesting problem:

When I turn on the sidelights it blows a fuse - which also seems to turn off the rear driving lights and the clock dial lights.

The car has had an aftermarket stereo - which has been earthed correctly, and is functioning normally, it also has a sub and amp which works normally.

I have recently changed the front bulbs and one brake light bulb - but have been driving around with these fine for two weeks.

The only thing I've done recently is alter the steering wheel height (but I can't see how that would affect things).

When the fuse goes smoke starts to come out of the dashboard on the drivers side!!!


What can I do? - is this a common fault?
I can't afford to go to an auto electrician until 2 weeks from now when I get paid

 

[yamaimo]

Hi I wonder how you connect earth cable with your powerful audio. I used to have the same problem only when I turn on my aftermarket stereo. Side light, tail light and instrument light went off all together. I was adviced to separate stereo earth from original earth cable on the harness. I earthed stereo directly to car body. Then the problem never came back again.

 

[Pavel]

I'd take your stereo connector, and simply cut off the 'lighting' wire. There's one that is on the ISO connector that connects to your sidelights, and on some head units dims it when your lights are on (so it's not so bright at night). The problem is that some cars wiring system don't like this... in the case of my Yaris, it caused the head unit to do all sorts of weird things if you turned the lights on (I think it was grounding that wire instead of giving it 12v as the head unit expected).

Now I tend to simply disconnect that wire to make sure stuff like that doesn't happen.

If the head unit grounds that connection, then when you turn on your sidelights it might just be shorting across the head unit (hence blowing a fuse)

 

[Scoobkilla]

I'd take your stereo connector, and simply cut off the 'lighting' wire. There's one that is on the ISO connector that connects to your sidelights, and on some head units dims it when your lights are on (so it's not so bright at night). The problem is that some cars wiring system don't like this... in the case of my Yaris, it caused the head unit to do all sorts of weird things if you turned the lights on (I think it was grounding that wire instead of giving it 12v as the head unit expected).

Now I tend to simply disconnect that wire to make sure stuff like that doesn't happen.

If the head unit grounds that connection, then when you turn on your sidelights it might just be shorting across the head unit (hence blowing a fuse)

Well My mate Matt (Slimothy) came over today, and we stripped down the fuse panel to make sure nothing had melted, replaced all the fuses, checked the relays and fuses in the engine bay, and found nothing.

Then we took the fascia panel off the dashboard, and pulled the headunit - lo and behold it was indeed the dimmer wire on the head unit.
Strikes me as very odd because Matt installed this head unit for me in exactly the same way as it was when he had it in his Super S, and its been working fine for ages.

Anyhow, problem appears to be solved (and we also replaced the bulb in the dash clock while we were at it ).

Thanks for your help!