cougars 5amp fuse blows

[Pimp Hard Or Bust]

whenever i turn on the lights the fuse blows. the guage and heater control lights dont light up.

saw some smoke from behind the guages.

the fuse still blows with nothing but the headlight switch hooked up

tore it apart







look at this wire. its all crusty but its not the wire that does the ilum i think

its like a brown and beige stripe

[Pimp Hard Or Bust]

according to this the wire that does the illuminating for the guages is A5 B11 lt blu red

[Pimp Hard Or Bust]

GOOD NEWS

i put a fuse in, turned the dimmer down almost all the way, unhooked that brown coupler that goes to the headlight switch, as well as the light that lights what gear im in and the fuse didnt blow!

now i gotta find what that brown coupler does

ill get a few spare headlight switches, a new harness coupler for it cause mines melted, fix that crusty connector...

however i cant see if my guages light up cause its too bright out.

[Pimp Hard Or Bust]

the brown coupler coming from the headlight switch has 2 wires

orange wit white stripe
and purple and black with a white stripe

[Pimp Hard Or Bust]

dammit it blew another one

the crusty wire started smoking

does that mean thats the wire thats shorting?

its brown with a beige or white stripe and when i accidently clicked it to the ip frame it sparked


the headlight wires look fine and im pretty sure theyre stock, they dont look blue bright or fancy

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put in a 15 amp fuse and i get no smoke or lights at the panel.

i read that it might be a pinched wire behind the cd player

ill check that tomorrow and after work on tuesday ill hit the wrecker for a headlight switch and a headlight switch harness coupler.

[85crownHPP]

Id replace the headlight switch and connector - the wire that smokes is prolly the bad one

[Pimp Hard Or Bust]

replaced the hadlight switch and connector still no guage lights. the fuse doesnt blow now... er at least it hasnt in a little while.


now if i was to take the wire that does the guage illuminating, and run a new wire from the same spot, splicing it to each side of the guages, to the hvac, and to the light on the gear selector, you think this would do it?

[Pimp Hard Or Bust]

ran a new light blue/red wire from the headlight switch to the guages, both a and b wire couplers for the gauges. and they still dont light up

the fuse stopped blowing though!

but why dont my guages light!?

[Pimp Hard Or Bust]

my poor car!

BEFORE YOU SEE THE LT BLUE/RED WIRE CUT I TRIED BYPASSING IT WITH THE BLACK WIRE I ADDED, IT DIDNT WORK



you can see the tan/white wire here at the fuseblock



BEFORE YOU SEE THE LT BLUE/RED WIRE CUT I TRIED BYPASSING IT WITH THE BLACK WIRE I ADDED, IT DIDNT WORK



BEFORE YOU SEE THE LT BLUE/RED WIRE CUT I TRIED BYPASSING IT WITH THE BLACK WIRE I ADDED, IT DIDNT WORK

no pinched wires i can see here.



should i take this off and look in?



near the manifold

[Pimp Hard Or Bust]

PROGRESS?

ok i took the light blue/red that powers the guages, and touched it to the red/yellow that powers the headlights when switch is on and they lit! then i took the dark brown that powers the parking lights and touched it to the same red/yellow and the parking lamps lit!


can i just splice these 2 wires into the headlight wire? or is it too much for that one wire/fuse? so that the parking light setting on the headlight swith does nothing, and the full on headlight position lights everything up. ? this would be much easier

[gadget73]

Sounds like there is a break in the power feed from the fuse box to the light switch, or a short in that wire. I'm not sure if splicing all that stuff together off a single pin would be a good idea. It might overload that portion of the switch.,

[Pimp Hard Or Bust]

ran a new lt blue red wire to both sides of the guages, to the cd player, to the hvac, to the ash tray light, and to the shifter light. put a 5amp fuseable link right by the headlight switch so i can access it easy. it all works!!!



then i wired up the cd player i used to have in my towncar, and the damn thing keeps spitting the cd out soon as i put it in.

so i wired up the old cd player (the right way ! the previous owner must not have known about the pink stripe wire being power on) he had a wire wrapped and jammed into the fuse) and the old player kinda works, will play 1 song off all my cds. so im running the cd cleaner through it.