So last night we had our Massachusetts meet and every thing was going fine. after the meet i got home, shut off the car, went back outside to leave again and when i started it up all the gauges in the factory s4 cluster stopped working. normally if it was just one, i would think nothing of it other being normal rx7 operation, but when they all went except the speedo, i found it kind of strange. anyone have any suggestions?

 

Speedo gauge is not electric, its mechanic.

Everything else in the car works?

 

yeah everything in the car works, just those gauges that **** the bed, blown fuse maybe?... i had forgotten that the speedo was mechanical.

 

"meter" fuse in the inside fusebox.

 

OK just got home from work.. before i went i replaced the blown meter fuse like you noted Kevin. but after like 5 seconds of running time it blew again.. so where should i start checking for shorts?

also, since the fuse went, the car hasn't been idling well. I know for S5's the cluster had to be plugged in or it simply won't start, so i figure that my new idle problem is due to the blown fuse.. any thoughts on that?

 

You got a short somewhere, probably melted wires also.

Do you have a voltmeter?

 

yep, i'll probably get the multimeter out first thing tomorrow. any idea where to start?

 

I once had a car do this every time I went in reverse. Turns out one of the wires on the transmission was shorted to the tranny case.

Get out your handy FSM and use the wiring diagrams to see what all items are fed off that fuse, and go from there.

 

yeah, it is probably something simple like that, because not much changed from the time i shut off the car until the time i next started it.

 

didn't have a chance to get into anything today but I did find out that the lights for the havc (is that what it's called?) stopped working and the fans are only blowing on like half power. and the auxiliary electric fan is now on all the time, even when the car is dead cold..

 

I checked page 50-12 pf the wiring diagrams and there are 2 wires... all the wires for that middle row of 5 fuses meet up into one wire labeled as 1. the second wire on the other side of the fuse meets up with the 10a and 15a fuses on either side of the 7.5 meter fuse. that group of wires go to the ignition switch into IG1

1) where does the 1 wire go? it goes somewhere unspecified with wires A 2 S and B

2) which side is the voltage side?

 

anyone?^^

 

Problem fixed. turned out like you said Kevin, that it was the reverse/backup-light sensor in the tranny. got under the car enough to wiggle the wires around and that seemed to fix the problem. next time i get the car up on the lift i will clean up the area a little better and re wrap any cracked wires. coincidently, my friend had the same exact problem on his t2. he just eliminated the sensor completely.