mister_r0b

As the title says, my lights don't work. If I switch over once to turn on parking lights, the fuse for my headlights pops. Then when I switch over to headlights they obviously don't work. I checked my headlight harness and everything is fine but every time I put a new fuse in, it just pops. Fuses get replaced left and right and along with my headlights not working and fuses popping, my dash lights, stereo, and running lights in the rear don't work either.

signal, hazard, and brake lights work though...

Need some help... greatly appreciated!

Luserkid

Well this is simple. You have a short. What did you just install? Radio, some lights somewhere, etc.?

Electrical is fairly simple. If you install something electrical and try to use it but you blow a fuse that means you wired it up wrong, or your wires are touching metal. Just retrace your steps to see what you did and find where it went wrong.

PS. Mighty Mouse was bad *** when i was a kid

mister_r0b

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by Luserkid &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">Well this is simple. You have a short. What did you just install? Radio, some lights somewhere, etc.?

Electrical is fairly simple. If you install something electrical and try to use it but you blow a fuse that means you wired it up wrong, or your wires are touching metal. Just retrace your steps to see what you did and find where it went wrong.

PS. Mighty Mouse was bad *** when i was a kid </TD></TR></TABLE>

Thanks, I'll check back...

Mighty Mouse is a sav

project_mercy

By fuse to your headlights, do you mean the Underhood headlight fuse? (40amp, boxy thing) or one of the Under-dash light fuses? Because there's 5 of them. Right low beam, Right High Beam, Left low beam, Left high beam, Dash/Tail/parking lights

I assume you mean under-hood fuse, as the loss of one of the 5 shouldn't take out the rest of them (aka, headlights would still work).

If it's the underhood one, I'm going to guess the switch is bad, but I'd suggest the following test. It will require a continuity testor or multimeter.

1.) Remove the shroud around the steering wheel. There's 3 bolts in the bottom that hold the bottom part on, you'll have to gently seperate the top from the bottom, pry it side-ways to split it, not up-and down. You may have to remove the lower dashboard cover to do it. That has 3 screws also.

2.) disconnect the 7-pin (the lower one with the fat wires in it) connector

Looking at the back of the switch (at the contacts) you should have 3 rows on the left (passenger) side, and 4 rows on the right (drivers) side of the switch housing. The Helms manual labels them as

J D
I E
H F
. G

I and E are (I think) white lines. That's power. You should have 12v+ there (in the connector on the wire side obviously) even with the ignition off (assuming you replaced the fuse). I don't think you'll have a wire at the "G" location, due to the fact that's for running the daytime running light circuit, which apparently the US didn't get, as we don't believe in safety or teaching people how to drive.

1.) With the fuse off, check continuity on the switch between all poles but H. You shouldn't have any.

2.) Push the switch lever towards the seat to engage the passing switch. You should get continuity between I and J (basically power from I is shunted to J, which is the high beams). Nothing else should have continuity

3.) Release the lever and turn the switch to parking lights. You should have continuity between D and E. E is power again, D is parking lights, dash lights, tail lights, license plate lights, and potentially may include a dioded line to a relay for your alarm, depending on how ghetto rigged the alarm was. Again, no continuity anywhere else.

4.) Turn thet lever to "low beams". Continuity again between D and E. Also, seperatly, continuity between F, G, and I. They shouldn't have continuity to each other though (not that it matters a great deal for this test, it's more to try to equalize amperage draw on wire size, as to reduce the chance of an electrical fire). No continuity to J (not that it matters, you'd just be running lows & highs at the same time).

5.) Turn the lever to "high beams". Same test as above, cept instead of F, G, and I, it's G, I, and J.

Functionally. E and I are white (power). D is parking lights, F is low beams, J is high beams, and G is for canadian daytime running lights. I don't know what H is for (beyond Honda).

Assuming that passes. You likely have a short somewhere past the switch.

Pull Fuse 9 (R high beam), 10 (L high beam), 21 (R low beam), 22 (L low beam), and 19 (dash/taillight/running lights). Test for ground on the switch side of the fuse. I don't really know off the top of my head if it's the top or bottom, so you'll have to experiment some. If that doesnt' work, you could just try turning the lights on and see if the fuse blows again if not, the short is somewhere after the underdash fuses.

The headlights are pretty easy to test. Just disconnect the headlight connector and test for ground from the fusebox (the side that isn't the switch side). If you still haven't found anything out of the ordinary, you've got a short somewhere in the parking/dash/tailight wires. Sucks to be you. You'll have to trace through all that wire. That line is Red/Grn from the switch to the fuse box, and Red/Blk through most of the rest of the car.

Good luck.