10 Steps Forward One step Back

[big_ty2003]

I have been making a lot of progress on my car since I bought it a couple months ago.

Rebuilt the back brakes
replaced the valve cover gasket & painted the valve cover
changed the oil twice to flush out the black sludge that was in it
changed the transaxle fluid
Installed a wiper switch and got the rear wiper functional
installed a CD player
Changed the gauge cluster to one with a tach

Today I did the DJ seat swap on some capri seats, pulled all the carpet and power washed it, patched a rather sizable hole in the floor pan

Here is the problem.
When I went to go leave my friends house I flipped on my lights, turned the key on accessory, and ejected a CD and replaced it with a new one. Then I hear a crackling and smell something burning. I look at the gauge cluster and see a thin line of smoke rising either inside the clear plastic or right in front of it. I hurry up and shut the lights off and flipped the key off. Ran up to my friends house and he brought a flashlight out and we checked it out.
No fuses are blown but I have no dash or gauge cluster lights now. The seat belt light, parking brake light, green turn signal light, etc... all still work just not the lights that illuminate the whole cluster and the dash lights. Radio still plays, all exterior lights work.

Anything like this ever happen to anybody? Do i just replace the gauge cluster and all will be fine or is the problem deeper.

We were cutting with a Matabo on the floor boards near the bundle of wires running to the ECU. But I don't believe we got close enough to nick them or anything.


Any help would be appreciated.
P.S. My interior dome light hasn't worked since I bought the car either. I don't think there is power in the wires running to it, but the fuse is good. Any ideas of what to check out to get this working. It wasn't fun riding home with no interior lights at all except for the cd player and "seat belts" light.

[mechanicaldj]

you must of wired the CD player wrong and used the interior lighting wire that lights up the OEM radio.

now you need the pull the cluster and look for the burnt wire/grid where the overload occurred

[mechanicaldj]

and check the front door switches to make sure they are grounding out when un-pressed for thr dome light to work

[big_ty2003]

I installed the cd player about a month ago and I followed the information in the sticky page of the interior forum.

[mechanicaldj]

did you check the three power wires with a test light?

one constant 12v
one ignition switched 12v
one "lights on" 12v

[big_ty2003]

I left the lights on one alone and wired it up to the constant and the ignition switched 12v
but I can turn my cd player on with out having the key switched on and listen to it. Is this normal in these cars? I did not check them with a meter. The wire that should be for the lights on 12v is cut off with no tape on it, I wonder if it touched something in there.

[WmWatt]

Aren't there fuses in the fuse panel to prevent this sort of thing?

[big_ty2003]

Thats what I thought, but all the fuses are still good

[NovaSS]

This may not be your problem but its something to watch out for when working with interior lighting, sometimes the switches control the ground part of the circut and not the power.

take door and headlight switches, although you would asume its breaking a power circut it realy opens the ground part of the circut. Its real easy to get confused on interior lighting and end up stuffing 12 volts straight to goround

[jglutz]

Maybe a lamp or a lamp socket in the dash bought the farm.

[big_ty2003]

in the cluster? the only other thing that usually lights up is the blue to red line on the heater control.

[big_ty2003]

Well tonight I pulled the dash cluster out and put my old one back in and the lights still don't work. I'm pretty much stumped I checked the wires that go into the cluster and none of them are burnt as far as I can see. Something definitely did burn though but I can't find it. How hard is it to take the dash apart so I can get behind it and look around?

[mechanicaldj]

check the dimmer switch before tearing apart the dash

[big_ty2003]

I am tired of trying to figure this out. If I put in a LED light strip in my cluster and wire it to a part of the wiring further forward like part of the headlights or whatnot, would this work? If so what should I wire it to?

[hofficergrover]

um did you take your steering column out? my problem was that i had the lights and the wiper plug wrong and they wouldnt work and smoked once and i couldnt find it til i changed my column