Blowed Up Stuff?

Question

New User


Group: Members
Posts: 18
Joined: 2-January 07
Member No.: 21,429
Vehicle Make: Ford
Vehicle Model: Ranger
Gender: Male
Vehicle Year: 87
2WD or 4WD: 4WD



OK. My dome lights never worked. The truck had no radio and butchered wires. I tried to install a radio and it didnt work. I did get the dimmer portion working. I accidnetally shorted the dimmer switch wire and now my interior lights on the dash dont work.

I went into the fusebox and replaced an obviously cooked 15 amper. Now the map lights above the dash work and the noise when you run the lights and the car is off works.

I also found a cooked 10 amper which I have yet to replace. Here are my questions?

Would the 15 amper that controls the map lights and the warning tone for the lights also control the constant and switched 12v wires for the radio?

Could the cooked 10 amper be the interior dash lights? I dont have another 10 amper to put in. will I cook it if it throw in a 15 to test with?

Answer 1

usually, the radio is on it's own deditated 10A fuse but that's not always the case. if you want to just have a radio that works, then it may be easier to bypass the old wires associated with it and run new ones (from battery, with an in-line 10 or 15A fuse, to the head unit's yellow AND red wires). that's what i did in my car because i didn't want to shell out for a wiring harness and am running an external 4-channel amp for the regular speakers, anyways. i just spliced a terminal on the end of the wire (12 gauge), spliced in a little waterproof spade-type fuse holder with a 15A fuse from radio shack, passed it through the firewall wire gasket, and wire nutted it to the red and yellow (ign and +12V const. power) wires. i then found a good ground point in the vicinity of my radio, ground it to bare metal, and attached a 15" ground wire extension from the head unit with a self-tapping screw. nice part is, the key doesn't have to be in the ignition to turn the radio on. bad part, it would be easy to leave the radio on when you go into the grocery store and come out with a drained battery. all things considered, it works fine and in your case (having apparantly unreliable wiring) might be your best bet. wouldn't cost you more than 10 bucks!

Answer 2

well glad to hear you're making progress with the ranger , do you have a smaller fuse to try , since you are fairly sure you have all the shorted wires taken care of it might be worth it. or take a 10 amp from another slot to test with ( not your brake lights 'though ) good luck , buy more fuses and keep us informed of your progress