Last week, the LCD display and button illumination on my stereo quit. I figured an internal fuse blew, or the ribbon that connects to the copper junction that the face snaps to had - well, had snapped.

So today I was putting in a new steering box. Disconnected the battery, first thing, natch. Took apart the steering column, swapped in the new box, put everything together. Triple-checked the connections to the combination switch before tightening it down and adding the column trim.

So I hook the battery up, and my stereo display works! Hooray? It would be, but I turned on my headlights, then turned them off, and the buckets stayed up.

Okay, blown fusable link. Even though the battery was disconnected during all the work.

But the dash lights and running lights are kaput. I know, they're all on the same circuit through the combination switch. Did I mention the triple checking of connections? Everything else works fine - turn signals, etc.

Then the headlights went down. On their own. Then back up again. And stayed up.

Wierd.

 

Hrmm. All the dash fuses seem to be good. There's a blue 4 prong plug that I thought might have something to do with it, as it comes from the region of the dash dimmer switch, but there doesn't seem to be a place for it to connect.

 

The stock stereo in the '83 currently only works right when the headlights are on. When they're off, the Liquid Crystal Display display is off and none of the presets or the tuner **** works. It also doesn't seem to have a memory of which station you were last on. I think the memory wire lost its connection or something. This car has many electrical gremlins.

 

I've an '85 with a Sony MP3/CD deck, same one that was in Pamela. It's been working fine, lights on or off, for 5 years or so.

of more immediate concern is why the dash and exterior lights won't illuminate.

 

I have noticed the 4 prong blue connector before as well???? Your gripe is wierd

 

id straight wire the stereo and see if that changed anything. the car is old. a connection could be bad. i had some similar problems when my illumination switch was going out. i suggest bypassing it.

 

It's wierd to gripe about dash lights and exterior lights failing when the fuse is fine? Thanks.

 

ive never had any dash or interior lights in my car...

 

Mine took a crap a lonnng time ago. Same Way you described. Just would not light up.
Replaced it with an MP80 - looks better with my color scheme.

 

is that the one with black across the face?

And mine works fine now - for some reason the battery disconnect/reconnect "jump started" it back into action. Static buildup, maybe.

And I found the wiring fault. Apparently the "tail illumination" fuse also causes the light buckets up condition and kills the dashlights. The thing looked fine, but failed continuity test.

 

It may have something to do with the positive side being connected last, or the positive disconnected and reconnected (like a short or bad connection). On my first 7, an SA, I had a similar problem and disconnecting the negative and reconnecting it solved it.
However, on my 85gs I have an inline breaker on the positive side and using it has no ill effects.

 

I feel for you Manntis, hang in there and try to figure it out. After about 6 months I finally figured out, with the help of a bunch of RX-7 gurus, why my headlights were making my car overheat (ie temp gauge would go up). It turned out to be the chassis ground, did you check that?

 

Sounds like a lifted ground. Sometimes a ground connection corrodes or works loose, and the juice finds a way between otherwise unrelated components, producing weird wired results.