Electrics help

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Electrics help

Postby Akane » Tue Jul 24, 2007 4:35 pm

Not too clued up with electrics, basically I bought a 94 corolla which turned out to be a bit of a lemon (as they do always with cheap cars).

At night, the dash lights won't work, the automatic selector display thingee won't light up, the heater lights won't work.

So I checked the fuses, sure enough the "Tail lamp" fuse is blown, I replaced it and tried it again and it promptly blew the new fuse.

I checked the trunk and the tail light wire looked ok. The brake lights work, just the dimmer tail lights does not.

Where should I check next? I assume the dash/heater/automatic selector lights are hooked along with the tail lamps (dim) for night driving.

Thanks
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Postby Lloyd » Tue Jul 24, 2007 4:42 pm

Got an aftermarket headunit in it by any chance?
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Postby sergei » Tue Jul 24, 2007 5:26 pm

Check if you are using the right light bulbs in the tail lights.
I would start from pulling all the light bulbs out and checking out resistances between light bulb contacts and ground.
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Postby Alex B » Tue Jul 24, 2007 7:15 pm

Start at the headunit, some fool will have wired it thinking green is earth, because they use AC in cars and all :roll: , either that or they have left said wire dangeling and its touching a part of the chassie etc.
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Postby Akane » Tue Jul 24, 2007 9:22 pm

Yeap it's got aftermarket headunit, I'll start looking at that in the weekend and come back to you guys, cheers for the help :)
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Postby darkwolf » Tue Jul 24, 2007 9:41 pm

Had the same thing initially in my mazda.

Temporary solution:
Buy a neon light with the cigarette lighter adapter. Mount it on the dash facing your speedo etc. Put black insulation tape over the side of the neon shining at your face. Problem temporarily solved... and looks "crunk"

Sorry should've mentioned - fixed it by finding the live was not connected to the stereo. Explained my problem with stereo not working when I bought it.
Last edited by darkwolf on Tue Jul 24, 2007 10:33 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Postby B1NZ » Tue Jul 24, 2007 9:56 pm

yeah, I would look at what wire has been used as the negative for the radio, common find (I have done it myself) :oops:

Also check to see if the tail lights are working, they are usually linked

The lights wire that they have most probably used will work as an earth and will read as one with a multimeter, but as soon as you turn them on it will have 12V on it and blow the fuse,

Just find the actual earth, possibly from the cigarette lighter and you'll be fine :-)
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Postby Alex B » Tue Jul 24, 2007 10:17 pm

Earth direct to chassie.
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Postby gasman » Tue Jul 24, 2007 10:59 pm

back in the day when i didnt know better and put a head unit in i left the dimmer wire from the car loom dangling and uninsulated and it had grounded when i put it back together and when i turned on the lights i blew the fuse and dash lights and all that other hoo ha didnt work.
being uneducated i replaced the fuse with a piece of wire thinking i could turn on the lights and give me some time to find the fault with out the lights turning off. the next thing you know smoke starts pouring out.

so if there is anything to be learned it is that if a fuse blows it usually is for a reason and DO NOT substitute pieces of wire for fuses.

ps was an aw11 so wiring was on its way out anyways so i can be excused
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Postby Akane » Wed Jul 25, 2007 4:19 pm

Yeap, the dimmer wire was used as the ground for the radio sure enough, while the headdeck worked for some weird reason, the lights didn't.

I went through the wiring and crimped it all and proper with a chassis ground, replaced the fuse and now everything is gravy.

Thanks for the help guys. <3
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Postby Mr Revhead » Wed Jul 25, 2007 5:39 pm

that has to be the single most common c0ck up made on toyotas :lol:
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Postby gasman » Wed Jul 25, 2007 6:17 pm

whys that i thought it would of been obvious.
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Postby Mr Revhead » Wed Jul 25, 2007 6:20 pm

this is why.....

pyro_sniper2002 wrote:Start at the headunit, some fool will have wired it thinking green is earth, because they use AC in cars and all :roll: , either that or they have left said wire dangeling and its touching a part of the chassie etc.
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Postby Bumpy » Tue Jul 31, 2007 7:05 pm

Do some people not know what a multimeter is?
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Postby Boosted_162 » Tue Jul 31, 2007 7:15 pm

The problem is that it it doesnt show power in any key position, unless you turned the lights on. So a multimeter wouldnt really help in this case.
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Postby Alex B » Tue Jul 31, 2007 7:30 pm

It shows as an earth until you turn the lights on so you have to be aware of it. Best practice is to use a good point on the chassie as an earth (assuming negitive earth). Factory looms especially on older cars may not be up to the task to run the headunit that well. I think toyota use either a brown or white with black stripe as the earth (not 100% on that).
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Postby matt dunn » Tue Jul 31, 2007 8:50 pm

Bumpy wrote:Do some people not know what a multimeter is?


Put an ohm meter between the green wire and earth,

and you will find they are connected with almost no resistance,
probably less than the meter is capable of testing.

I use a test light for almost everything, as long as you know where you are sticking it your fine,
In fact there is bugger all place you can stick a test light that will cause problems ( stay away from yellow sheilded wires)


And a LED test light is just as useless as a multimeter most of the time.
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