rotary_neubie

Well well well..... I recently, two weeks ago, pulled the dash completely apart to find out where smoke was comming from from within my dash.... I rewired the stereo, and anything that the previous owner may have done, and everything was cool, until lastnight. I was driving home, and turned on the lights, and I can smell smoke, and the dash lights didn't come on. So... I began to pull the dash apart, and found the cause. The wires that light the cigerette lighter up had rubbed thru on some metal, and shorted out, but the fuse didn't blow, causing the smoking effect.... now the wire that carried power to the light for the cigerette lighter has no insulation around it. This goes thru most of the wiring harness that I could see. I really don't want to remove the dash again, because its a pain in the ****, but what choice do I have? I would like to just eliminate all lighting on the center consol pretty much and just have the guages lit up... but there still is that bare wire running in along with all the other wires in the harness..... what to do? Help a brother out....

Anex 570

Get the manual out and find the wire your talking about. Try to disconnect it or just snip it, but leave some there so you can fix it someday. Make sure you cover it good, even glue or silicone over it. Thats about as much as I can give ya, you just need to find where else the wire goes to make it much easier. I think theres a plug for just that side of lights slightly behind the dash, but possible to get it from underneath. Please study that manual, I cant stress it enough, eventually you'll know what needs to be done. If your really stumped, yell back here.

Pele

iTrader: (28)

That hot wire could've melted through adjacent wires in the harness...

I wouldn't say remove the dash, but there's gotta be a way to get at the harness... Remove the glove box, the gauge cluster, trim, anything to get behind the dash without actually removing the dash itself...

See if you can figure out where that wire ends up and you may be able to just pull that one wire outta the harness...

I have an '85 RX-7 dash sitting somewhere and I'll go through the harness and see where that wire ends up when I get a chance... You can clip it off at both ends if you want.

rotary_neubie

I removed the harness that runs thru the dash and over the glove box, and plan to replace it with the one from my parts car. So that end of things should be all good. One thing I did notice was a green and black wire on the other wiring harness, the one that plugs into the one I've removed that seems to be burnt, exposing copper.... I will be looking closer at it today, I'll see what I can come up with. Thanks for the help..

rotary_neubie

I just took a look at the other wiring harness with that green and black wire, that goes further under the dash, by the pedals and steering wheel, and cannot see how it comes outta there, or where it goes to... has anyone removed that?

Second2none

i have a compleatly stripped wire harness, problem being i removed that wire, i belive it ties in with another hot wire, they seem to go back and forth and then link 2 - 4 wires into 1. i cant remember exactly tho... but im sure it connects into 1 wire with a few others of the same color.

85rotarypower

When I undertook the task of rewiring some things in my car, I had to sit under the drivers side of the dash to get to anything. The haynes is a nice thing to have when doing any type of wiring, but even with that I was laying under the dash for at least 5 hours straight. Its a really tight fit under there, no doubt about it. What you need to do if find out where the burnt wire goes. I had to trace a burnt wire in my car (happened to be the ground for the cruise control unit), but could only trace it to the firewall. Its crazy hard when you get into the under dash part of the harness. But if you persevere, you will find where the wire goes and probably be able to redo the wire.

One thing that confuses me about this is that it didn't pop the fuse. I've poped fuses with shorting this very wire out before (by accident ), and its poped the fuse every time.

Second2none

what amp is the fuse ? maybe someone that had the car before you had it pop a few times becuase of an exposed wire, and thought well **** lets just upgrade the fuse...

rotary_neubie

well... it seems to me that its nearly impossible to remove the under dash wiring harness without removing the steering wheel, and abunch of covers for it. According to what my electrical wiring diagram says, the wire that is burnt, should be one that goes the the light switch on the steering colom (sp)? I am just going by color, and by the things that stopped working, ie: the dash lights..... soo if I trace this red and green wire ( I said it was green and black before, but that turns out to be only black is one spot, cause its burnt) with the use of strictly the wiring diagram, because its impossible to see where it goes, I should be able to do a little snip snip, and run a new wire, and all should be good?

rotary_neubie

there was a 30 amp fuse in there... way to large for the job I believe....

Pele

iTrader: (28)

WOAH!

Yeah... Pull that out and put a 10 in there like it's supposed to be.

rotary_neubie

well thus far in my little project here, Ive swapped in the parts car's wiring harness. I taped up the burnt wire on the other wiring harness, which is under the dash and over the steering wheel and to god knows where. I pulled the burnt wire out as far as I could along the wiring harness, and it seemed to be less burnt the further down the harness it went. I've pretty much hooked everything up, and it all seems to work! I hope it stays that way tho. All fuses that were in the fuse panel, that were overkill have been replaced with the proper sized ones. All thats left to do, is put the bottom half of the dash back together, and hopefully all is good. Thanks for the help.

Pele

iTrader: (28)

I'm suprised that didn't blow out your dimmer switch...