lights out and burning smell.
 

I was racing last night coming up the 1/4 mile hill near my house when my throttle stuck, RPM's revved up, and the lights on my dash went crazy! I quickly got the throttle unstuck with my foot, but I had no dash lights the rest of the way home. The inside of the car smelled like as if I drove with the parking brake on. I parked the car in the garage and didn't look at anything cuz it was late. I'm afraid to go out today and see what happened. I'm hoping that I fried the dimmer switch and nothing else. Right now my dimmer switch is jumped to stay on all the time.

Probably the over-rev either took out the voltage regulator in your alt, or it was already weak and allowed an over-voltage condition.

Dimmer control is a rheostat and works by converting part of the bulb drive voltage to heat via resistance; if it got over-voltaged it could have possibly gotten over-hot and burned out an already-weak section. Or you could have cooked a dirty wire connector somewhere in the dash.

If your actual instruments were still working & ignition was still good, etc., I don't think you got hurt too badly.

But I'd recommend getting your alt checked out, in addition to fixing your lamp issue. Properly-working voltage regulator won't allow an overvolt regardless of RPM.

Good info. Thanks man.

You are full of knowledge DD

Ask anyone; I'm so full of it I spill...

Looks like I got some more troubleshooting to do. I found one fusible link blown and one fuse in the fuse box blown. I replaced them. The car will not start. I'll let you all know what I find.

Bummer; good luck with it. Do you have your wiring diagram?

Well I have the link to download it if I need it.

Still won't start. I have no spark. All the fuses are good and fusible links are good too. When I turn my key on, only 4 of the 9 idiot lights light up. If I remember correctly, all of them should light up momentarily when the key is turned before cranking. The 5 that are not illuminating are the first 5 from left to right. Any suggestions? Remember, this all started due to a stuck throttle and a brief over-rev.

I wish I knew the 85's better so I could help you more; the SA wiring is a bit different.

Time to start looking for the common point of power supply for the ignition and those lights that are dark. You'll need to get intimate with a voltmeter and your wiring diagram.

Could be something as simple as a cooked connection in your ignition switch or a bad relay, but unless you want to pull your electrical system completely apart, the way to chase this is to locate common points & then inspect power delivery before an after them. because electrical parts are in difficult-to-reach places, logic and deduction are your main troubleshooting tools with electrical issues.

& get that alt into a parts store for a test... otherwise you could fix your problem only to immediately fry something again when the car starts.

Where is (GSL-SE ADDICT) when I need him?

I have no exterior lights at all except headlights. Brake, turn signals, parking, tail lights---nothing. I also have no instrument lights or radio lights. The only interior lights I have are dome and map. All fuses are good.

RG lead out of the combo switch is common to all those lighting circuits.

Can you please explain this? Not sure what you are referring to. My Hayne's manual is showing a relay under the dash, but there is a coffee spill on that page, and I can't really tell what it's for. Any ideas?

You need to download the factory wiring diagram for you car - link is available in the faq. It will help you enormously with problems like this - - far, FAR better than the diagrams in the aftermarket manuals!