interior lights and warning sounds

[rusty1701]

I have a '93 with a weird electrical problem. This has been going on since I bought the car a few months ago. when I first got the car, none of the courtesy lights or warning sounds worked. I checked all of the bulbs, they were all fine! I then checked the fuse, which was missing!! I replaced it, and behold I had lights and sounds!! Here's the catch, they will not go off when I close my door!!! My first thought was the door switch. I can't find door switches on either door!!! all of the door switches that I have seen stick out on the door or is located some where on the frame!! Does anyone know what in the hell is going on? I hate that I have to keep the fuse out to stop my battery from draining!! Please help!!

[95OldsHO]

There are no door "plunger" type switches on these cars. I think its integrated into the lock, but not sure of that.

The "body control module" or "convience center" controls the lights and alarms etc, its located "under" the steering wheel in the dash its box shaped about 7"x7" or so, most Ive seen where pinkish in color seen a blue one before also, should have one connector going into it I believe 3 wires on that connector, sometimes it is easier to find with the alarm going off as the little speaker is inside the box.

I had the same problem as you after I had a radio installed at Circuit city(wife wanted it installed and I didnt have time that weekend), they returned the car to me asking how to turn off the alarms and lights and I just looked at them and asked what the hell they did to it, they didnt know.

I took the car driving home with the lights and chimes going off and was told that Curcuit City would pay for any repairs needed.. anyway after I got the car home and had time I started looking over their install, everything seemed ok, I eliminated the radio install from the rest of the car and that didnt solve anything, so I got out the shop manual and looked at the wiring diagram. After a couple months with no alarms and lights etc I assumed all my hard parts were ok still and thought maybe a connector came off, wire was cut/fried, the easy things.. I went through most of the system checking wires and connectors, from what I could tell the system was lacking a ground somehwere, came to the body control box and I opened it up and started looking at the circuit board inside, and there it was, a small fuse was blown, next to it were the letters GND or GRD cant remember exactly, its a standard looking fuse, but its inside is differant than most standard fuses Ive seen I think its timed(sorry not an elec. expert)and thats what gives the "theatre lighting" effect, I am not 100% on that.. I found a very similar fuse(rating,look and all) at Radio shack, removed the blown fuse from the board and put in the new one and everything was back to normal with the lighting and alarms.

This ground fuse was blown during the radio install somehow and without it the body control module couldnt ground the system to turn things off when needed Im guessing, you might try having a look at the circuit board in your body control box, the connector etc or grab an extra box from a junkyard. Sorry for the length of this but I thought this could be your problem also and tried to be descriptive as possible since it was such a pain for me to diagnose.

[rusty1701]

95oldsho,
thanks for such great info!! The detail was awesome. I plan to "tear" into it this weekend. Thanks again!