Hello Everyone,

I could use a little help here with a lighting problem im having on a 1980 10th AE. This car came from a very wet climate and had a lot of corrosion on the lighting plugs, after many hours of cleaning I finally got all the lighting to work except now I have a short somewhere in the circuit for the tail & marker lights. What happens is after installing a 15 amp fuse eveything will work but when you turn on the lighting combo switch and look at the fuse while doing so you can see the fuse element flexing like its getting to much current. After repeating this process several times usally 8-10 times the fuse element will fatigue and fail losing all tail lights & stop lights plus all marker lights. Headlights, turnsignals & flashes work okay though. Thinking I have a bare wire in the main harness? Can you make any suggestions?

Thanks,

Phil

 

Pull your combo switch and check for carbon build-up.

 

I have cleaned all the carbon buildup throughly on the combo switch and even tried a backup combo switch from one of my other AE zx's that works just fine the other vehicle but when installed on the problem vehicle i still have the same problem? I do have one additional combo switch I picked up at my local wrecking yard in good shape I can try but I think the problem might be somewhere else in the circuit. Before changing out the ientire main harness I wanted to make sure I wasn't missing something.

 

there is a ground at the rear that prolly badly rusted out. ae's arent much different from other s130's. just some paint and decals. you dont need specific ae parts for that harness.

 

Thanks for the reply..... I will check all of the grounding points again to see if I missed something this week and post an update.

 

i would also check all the light sockets . turn the switch on without light bulbs to see if the fuse blows , use circuit breaker , it's cheaper than relacing fuses . install , light bulb , one at a time then check the result of each one . good luck .

ls1 280zx

 

Did you know, you could post that pic permanently in your signature? Go to user CP, and put [img]pic address here[/img] Not sure if you knew about it. But figured I would let you know.

 

thanks . i tried it but it didnt work , i must've done something wrong . i'll try it later .
nevermind , it works . but it wont let me insert 2 images .

 

Does it say you exceeded the character limit? You are only allowed 300 characters. I use photobucket, and I am able to squeeze 2 pictures in my signature, with my little stuff on the bottom. Good luck