I was driving back to college late last night, and my instrument panel gauges and turn signals go out, with the battery and coolant idiot lights flashing. I also had the overrev buzzer going off louder with increasing rpm (annoying!!!!). I get in the car today and fire it up to drive down to Pep Boys to get some blade fuses. About a second later, the instruments light back up and turn signals come back.

WEIRD!!! Must have been a ghost. I'm thinking maybe the fuse popped out of the box and then pushed itself back in when I started the car. It ran fine for 5 miles to the grocery store and back.

Kev

 

sounds like a bad alternator or wire not a fuse...

 

Based on your theory, my REW swap will be completed with approximately one week under the car cover.

Bad ground dude.....

 

most likely a bad ground. They tend to play games like this.

 

they can play games as can intermittent shorts. if it were a short, you'd possibly have an exposed wire touching another wire or bare metal at intermittent times. both very frustrating.

 

could be a failing fuseable link too. I had one that was falling apart and it did the exact same thing.

 

I just did the following things:

Replaced 80's analog aftermarket radio with modern head unit. All connections crimp connected, shrink tubed and electrical taped. PO had wires wing nutted or wrapped together and electrical taped. Power wire plugged into fuse box.

Pulled dimmer switch, connected red/blue to red/white and wrapped up ground wire with electrical tape.

Added mechanical oil pressure gauge, hot wire into switched 12V fuse.

Any clue on where I went wrong?

Kev

 

A "self-healing fuse" is not possible.

 

Sounds like a short or bad ground as others have said. Was it raining or recently raining when it failed and dryer when it came back? Maybe water is getting in somewhere and shorting something out.

Or
Maybe that new head unit is stressing out a fusible link or a wire somewhere now thats its installed. Was the radio on/off when it occurred?

 

I didn't mean to imply a self healing fuse lol. I meant that perhaps the fuse literally popped out of it's connector in the fuse box. If the actual filament broke, it's obviously junk.

It wasn't wet but the headunit was on when the circuit went out. Radio continued to work after gauges went out.

Kev

 

Grab some new fusible links and repalce all of them up in the engine bay ( on the front of the drivers side shock tower). Theres new blade types you can get to replace the old wire ones and they're called fusible links, plus they fit really well in the 1st gen. I bet with the new stereo one of the em is weak and getting ready to blow. Also make sure you grounded out the new stereo good and that the grounds in the car are all good.

 

wondering if this fixed your problem...

 

Tinkerbell fixed it when you weren't looking.

 

my car had the same problem and it was a bad ground wire in one part and a short in 2 wires touching. Its annoying