hey guys ive just finsihed wiring up a amp kit and i went to start the car and it tried to turn over and just cut out. had no power to anything, i had a look at the relays near the battery and unplugged them and put them back in and the car starts but the problem is my parker lights dont work. brake lights. dash lights. now i had a look at my fuses inside the cabin and the parker lamps fuse was blowen but everytime i put a new fuse in when i turn the lights on it blows ???

could the problem be the relays near the batterys,and when i touch the power to the battery i cant hear the relays clicking


ive also disconnected the amp power cable to see if this was the problem

sounds like you hooked up an earth to the parker feed on the stereo for the dimmer feature. so when you turn your parkers on, it will short it out and blow the fuse. did you poke around with the wiring behind the head unit?

I agree for I have seen this so many times even from professional stereo fitters.Kevman.

the only thing i did near the headunit was add the rca's and add the amp remote wire

the ground wire for the amp was mounted on the backseat moutning point

i did notice when i had the sterio on the bass would dimm the lights

well ive replaced all the relays and i still have the problem of the parkers fuse keeps blowing

Unplug all the wires you've hooked up and see what happens.Who told you to replace the relays?The positive feed for your park/dash lights is going down to earth which is why you are blowing fuses.Maybe you trapped a wire when you were doing your installation.Kevman.

hey mate i took out all the wires i added and still the same problem. i just cant get my parkers and stop lights working, is it possible when i fed the power cable through ive nicked it on a wire ???

i might take the dash apart and have a look around where the power cable would of gone through. i know i put the power cable through where the clutch cable go's

un plug the head unit and check your lights again. failing this - you might coincidentally have a short in your park light system that is unrelated to the stereo install but it sounds like its something to do with the stereo wiring. if you un plug the head unit and it solves the problem then either the head unit has an internal short and you'll have to disconnect the dimmer wire, or, its been used as an earth by accident (very common problem as kevman mentioned)

did you disconnect the battery if so you should check that you have replaced ALL of the earth leads i had exactly the same symptoms a few years back took it to a auto electrician only to look like a d***head when he found a un connected earth problem fixed

Why don't you see if you have a short...

Unplug the fuse, set your multimeter to beep... make sure you stick the probe in the dead pin of the fuse (not the live one, you will destroy your meter) and the other to earth... Turn on your switch and see if you get a beep...

The parker relay is next to the fuse panel... The ones beside the battery are the horn, low beam, high beam and starter relays...



Excuse the blurry state... Now following logically... You say you replace the fuse all is fine until you turn the parklight switch yes? 1 of 2 things is happening...

You notice power runs to park lamp coil and first contact... Either the coil in the relay is of extremely low resistance, so when you hit the switch the coil is so low that it causes a huge current rush and blows the fuse, thats one branch... To try to fix, try replacing the relay with one of your new ones (remember its next to the fuse panel and is labelled)...

Second possibility is on the contact side... Assume switch and coil are fine... you hit the switch and the coil energises and then the contacts close and then closes the power onto an earth wire and blows... This wire runs to every park bulb in the car, it splits and runs to each headlight, tail light, number plate light, cig lighter, ash tray, cd player, rear demister switch, instrument cluster, clock, t bar lights, aircon... At one of these things the wire that normally powers has been bridged to ground... Make sure the wire in the CD player plug in the car has not been accidentally earthed (brown wire)... because it happened when you we fiddling behind here you'd nearly assume its there somewhere, but there is a brown wire somewhere that has been bridged to the earth of the car... you can try removing every single park light globe, if still blows it moves the problem to being definitely a short on the brown wire, if it goes away with every single bulb removed then a bulb has bridged (could've melted a filament across the terminals or something completely unusual to suddenly drop heaps of resistance and case the fuse to blow)...

If you pull the parker relay and find a brown wire in a park light socket somewhere and measure the resistance to ground, I bet you'll see its near zero ohms... R = V/I so 12V/15A = .8 ohms... not very high... your blowing instantly so you can assume two to three times the current... .26 - .3 ohms or less I think you'll find... more or less indicating you'll earthed a brown wire...

Hopefully I haven't confused with the ramble above...

Cheers,
Tim

Also your brake lights should still work as they are a separate fuse...

Cheers,
Tim

hey mate thanks for the info, to be honest im very confused lol. but ill buy a multimeter and try what you said. how do i tell witch one of the pins on the fuse is the live and dead one

thanks again so far for your help

Before you go tearing the car apart I'd start simple..
The issue only arose since you hooked up the amp, right? I'd unplug the head unit, disconnect the amp and make sure you haven't damaged any wiring in the boot by mounting it and drilling into the harness or having stuff float about.

Also, do you have a trailer plug? If so, check the harness isn't shorting on the exhaust or any other obstructions underneath and pull the cap off and have a look inside, you might find the wiring in there to be the fault or one of the little screws came loose and is shorting out the park light circuit.

Failing this, you can make up a simple 'short light' using a bit of twin core and a headlight globe. Poke the twin core in either side of the park light fuse and use the headlight globe as the fuse instead (if you can, crimp small terminals on the end of the wire to make it sit in there happily). Make sure the twin is long enough to have the globe outside the car because it will get hot and burn your carpet! If there is a short, the light will be on and if it's off then the short has gone away. You can use this method to 'chase' the short, if the light is on then go around and start removing globes and inspecting the harness for damage. You'd be surprised how many times I've found cheap tail light globes to be the problem, so I'd start there first.

well so far ive taken all the amp wiring out. but i will have a look at the headunit wiring as i have touched it when i install the rca's and the amp remote wire.i havnt done in drilling so far. i mounted the ground wire for the amp on the seat bracket. i do have a trailer plug so i will have a look over it.when you say short light. is that the same as a test light ??,. if its not can you draw me a small picture of what your telling me.

thanks for the good info. im keen to fix this problem and i should have the car back tommorow from the panel shop

Hold that thought, I'll pull out my phone and take some photo's for ya I'm VERY bored so you're giving me something to do, hold on...