DRL / Taillight issues

[Fortenshire]

Hi all,

I'm having a strange, recurrent issue...
Apparently I have a short to ground someplace, because my taillight fuse keeps blowing and my dash/tail lights cease working. Any new fuse I put in continues to blow. My mechanic said the "ground junction harness" was possibly at the root of the problem and repaired it.

Next thing I know my DRL goes out, but the regular headlights/taillights still work. So I pulled the DRL relay under the hood (the fuse was ok) to test it for continuity--the brass prongs registered but the silver ones did not. I left the unit pulled thinking I'd go buy a new relay to see if that fixed the problem.

Well my headlights wouldn't turn on, so I put the old DRL relay back in until I was able to go out and get a new one. This turned my headlamps on and everything was fine, until I dropped the hood of the car to close it. As soon as it slammed the parking lights went out and my tail lights with them. The taillight fuse had blown again, and now I'm back to sqare one with no DRL, no headlamps (when I turn my steering column to headlamps the DRL come on), no taillights, no parking lights, and no dash lights, and a continually blowing fuse.

Mind you, turn sigs/brakes/emergencies still work fine.


I think I must have a short someplace that's getting jarred and blowing the fuses--could this be the DRL module? I did install an aftermarket CD player but I don't think I pinched any wires--could that have something to do with this?

I'm leaving the state in a week and I'd like to know what's up before I haul out of here...otherwise I guess I won't do much nighttime driving...

Thanks!

[Fortenshire]

Ok, update...

So I took it to the mechanic, who ran a completely new ground from the DRL module to the chassis. This fixed both problems; headlights came on, DRL came on, dash and tail lights worked fine.

Tonight I drove it to a bar with my headlights on and everything working perfectly. I went in, had a meal, came out, and now the fuse is blowing again, so I have no running lights.

Nothing happened to jar the wiring, I can't imagine that I displaced anything on the drive over, I did nothing to drive abnormally from how I usually drive.

Any thoughts?