Hello,

In my rx7, which I bought used, there are four aftermarket gauges installed. I believe they are boost, oil pressure, water temp, and I can't remember the fourth. Well, about four months ago, they suddenly died. The control box is on the left kick panel in the drivers seat. Mine is an RHD by the way.

The box has no power and neither do the gauges. About a month ago, I was washing my windshield on the inside and I barely, and I mean barely, like if you were fiatbumping with a baby bird, bumped the dash above the clock with my fist and they clicked back on.

I turned the car off, let it sit, turned back on, they're still working. I'm thinking, "great, they work again...but weird how they stopped in the first place". Well about five minutes into the drive, I look over and they're off again. I've since pushed lightly and hardly on the dash all over the place as well as lightly moved the cables above the pedals around and they've never turned on again.

Any clues what I should be looking for? A loose connection? An exposed wire shorting it out? It's own fuse somewhere?

Thanks

 

You probably won't get too many answers for asking about something like this. But it Sounds like a ground. If you haven't already checked wherever they are all grounded, I would do that first,it would definitely help to have a multimeter and check light.

 

Thanks for the reply.

I followed wires and such for like two hours. Eventually something about the cig lighter was bothering me and I pulled it out to fix it, when I put it back in, the gauges clicked on and off. I started twisting the lighter port and it would flicker on and off. I found a spot where it stays on. That's the latest update.

 

Someone wired them to that, for switched power. May want to find a bigger source for 4 gauges... I'm betting he upped the fuse amperage for it too. Not a great idea. Fuses are designed to pop for a reason.

 

Well the room fuse is a 10 where the panel says 7.5v.

 

The lighter goes through the CIGAR fuse. It's also fused at 10 amps. If that panel can draw 7.5 amps that is all fine and dandy until you need to use the cigarette lighter.

 

Yah, I know. Just saying that the room fuse is the only fuse that is higher or lower than the recommended

 

There is no way in the great fluffy hell that the gauge panel draws more than about 1A. That's with full backlighting.

Looks like what you are dealing with is a crappy wiring job. How were the gauge wires tied into the existing cigar lighter wires? Vampire clips are garbage and will become intermittent after installation in about 12 seconds. While I don't like scabbing off the almost already overloaded ROOM circuit, gauges don't draw much so it shouldn't be a big deal.

Don't scab off of the cigar lighter light bulb...it gets dimmed by the interior dimmer.

At the least I'd suggest re-doing the connection to the cigar lighter. Strip a small amount of insulation off of the wire, about 1/8", then twist your new wires onto it. Solder. Clean off the flux then insulate with a quality tape (ie. 3M Super 88). Install a new connector onto your wires (the auto parts store will have 2 wire connectors) with the matching end on your gauge harness.

 

Any half decent gauge is drawing a few hundred mA at worst. Unless you're running 15 gauges, that circuit is plenty sufficient with enough headroom for any moderate accessory plugged into the port.