Head Lights -> Smoking gauges

3gSislpr · #1 06-06-2005, 04:34 PM

Hello, so for a couple of weeks i have been having some electrical bugs, it started with turning on my head lights would make my cd player cut out for a second.

Now when i turn on my head lights i get some smoke from the back of my gauge cluster. The temp gauge was going funny as well. i took off the cluster and i can see where the metal/plastic film is burning, but i cant see any shorts or figure out why it would do that. i tried it again and as soon as i put on the lights, it starts smoking.

so i have checked all the fuses and they are all good, i have looked at and checked all the grounds and they seem fine. the only thing i have found that is out of order is in my underhood fuse box the ignition fuse says it should be 50 amps but only a 40 is in there. could that be causing all this trouble, it has been in there as long as i have had the car and these problems started recently.

the car is a 89 Si with ls swap
thanks

turtlecrxsi · #2 06-06-2005, 04:51 PM

Something is drawing way too much current to make it smoke like that. I've had my share of electrical stuff due to ghetto rigging (not by me) and I know if current is strong and is not properly fused off or grounded then the heat will smoke when plastic is nearby. Also, bare metal gets extremely hot and can trigger issues like you described which will eventually lead to the car messing up. If this happens when you use your headlights, start from there to locate the issue... GL

FuLL BLown STD · #3 06-06-2005, 05:57 PM

this isnt much but id start by disconnecting the harness on the back of the radio.. u did a ls swap into a si so u really didnt have to muck around with the wiring much? i dunno how many accessories u have but start troubleshooting by disconnecting them and see if the prob persist.. accessories as in aftermarket guages..ect. good luck

3gSislpr · #4 06-07-2005, 08:46 PM

Well i dont have any other aftermarket stuff but the head unit and unplugging it didnt help, i actually cant get it to smoke now, but if i just turn on my lights with out the car on, my temp gauge goes up, so i guess it is crossed with that wire somewhere, which really sucks i think. Also if i have the car running and turn on the lights it will stall. if i take out the light fuse under the hood, no problems but if i take out all the fuses underthe dash the temp gauge still goes up and the car stalls. hope this helps get some new ideas going i really hope i dont have to rip apart my wiring harness. thanks

turtlecrxsi · #5 06-08-2005, 09:07 AM

Okay... you need to play Sherlock Holmes. Basically, there are lots of wires + and - that eventually connect to main circuits and like I said, if they stay fucked up for too long it will fuck your car up. Your main harness that runs left of your battery leads out to a few relays and sensors... there are wires which lead to two relays on the fender wall... the small one is for your headlights and the larger relay is for the cooling fan. Make sure the wires are not exposed to bare metal or crossed even. If I were you I'd even take off the guage cluster hood and look at what's going on at all the connections there. You may have your lights wires touching your temp guage wires or something weird... Here is a link to a pdf version of the workshop manual. Look in the electrical section for exact wiring stuff... GL

http://www.crxpower.net/~silverkorn/...hop_Manual.pdf

Figori · #6 06-08-2005, 12:56 PM

Another thing to think about is, Did you cut the plugs to install your stereo, or did you use and adapter plug? Either way, did you tape off any extra wires that weren't connected to anything? There is a wire that comes from your rehostat(light switch) to the Tape Player to turn the 'lights' on when you turn your lights on. If you're not careful, you could have that wire ground out, and cause things to go hay-wire. Make sure all of the extra wires going to your CD player are taped off well, and then pull the gauge hood off and see what wires melted together. Happy hunting!

3gSislpr · #7 06-12-2005, 08:32 PM

Well I checked all the stereo wires and taped them off, but things are even crazier now. Now when i hit the brake the temp goes up and some other lights on the cluster come on. this still also happens when i turn the lights on, the lights dont actually come on. i also got another gauge cluster and all this stuff still happens, but no smoking now?!? fun stuff huh? thanks

Riceboy891 · #8 06-21-2005, 07:16 AM

All i have to say is that i would check all of my connections and make sure everything is safe so that my car didnt end up like this.http://www.putfile.com/media.php?n=SRgtiFIRE

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