Convertible Cowboy

After 9 Shiner Bocks and working in the dark, I arc welded a wrench handle on my battery. Pop/Spark no smoke or fire.

What happened: ( '90 FC 13b vert / all power windows / top / , no fogs )

1) Blew out the 100 Amp brick fuse under the hood

2) Blew out the 7.5 Amp blade fuse inside

3) Pissed myself

What I did:

1) Replaced 100 amp brick

2) Replaced 7.5 amp blade

3) Tested remaining brick fuses & all blades inside fuse box.

4) Pulled what Haynes calls the " Dimmer Relay" & "Headlight Relay" ( front by radiator left to right ) took them to two dealers (as Haynes says) for bench testing. They laughed at me " not without your car in here ".

5) Went to bone yard and raked all the relay's out of a firebombed car like mine ( and a cruise control unit - CC never worked ) Stuck 'em my car. No help.

6) Metered Alt OK. Battery OK.

What is still Hosed:

I used to kick the lights on with the big wheel on the left. Light housing would pop up and light up.

Now I turn it on, and it just lays there & pulls current ( dash / clock goes dim - like me)

If I pull the turn signal tword me and hold it, the lights stay on.

If I turn the small **** above the light swith ****, the light housings pop up. Same deal, lights come on if I pull and hold. With housing up or down.

All other lights work. All other componates work that worked before. ( I hope)

Have searched forum. Have quit drinking (today). Please Help. Will buy beer.

I now wrap tape around my wrench handles

TIA !

Sammytom

You problebly fried a wire. I would go to the plugs under the hood where the light hookup, and test them there.

WAYNE88N/A

Funny thing is, you shouldn't have blown the fuses if all you did was short the battery contacts together (definetly could have killed the battery, though....). Were you doing anything else with the car, say around the time of the 7th or 8th Shiner Bock?

Convertible Cowboy

You busted me Wayne. You are wise, master. I gotta come clean. I can't live with my lie. I was SO fucked up, I actually reversed polarity when I hooked the battery back up ( damn, those sparks seem intense, must be cause I'm working in the dark & drunk ).

BTW: Got my lights working again. Found a console switch assembly on eBay for $40 & replaced the harness with a new one from the Mazda house for $82.24 (ouch).

I will never work on my ride drunk (or ?) in the dark, ever.

Now I'm going to go the extra mile & TRY not to drink (or ?) and drive with my gun in the car.

strikland

At least you were drinking good beer :thumbup:

Hopefully nothing else is dead, and as long as you didn't try and start the car w/ the battery backwards, it shouldn't be. If you did... then you get a new ecu

Convertible Cowboy

Yep. Won't stock my fridge/cooler with nothin' else. It's a magical brew. After a few Shiners, women who resemble pit bulls turn into Britney Speers.
Sometimes, when I'm feelin' "upscale", I'll sip a Hiney or Saint Paulie Girl with my pinky finger extended. This is to impress the ladies. It don't seem to work. In fact, I think I'll stop doing that. Makes me feel weird. I'm a proud homophobic.

Nope. Didn't try to start it with battery backwards. I was in the house changing the jeans I had pissed.

Everything that was dead before this adventure in ignorance, is still dead:

1) Cruise control ( got a used/replacement module, not replaced yet ).

2) Fog lights ( or I don't how to turn 'em on * n00b ).

3) Power antenna (cheezy mast strip is broke, or off the track).

4) One of the daughter boards on my FC66 CPU is pooped. Door chime out. Open door dome light out. Door open safety marker lights out.

5) Stock theft alarm. This one don't bother me. I will shoot any unauthorized personel who touch my car, then run over the corpse.

WAYNE88N/A

Lol, only in Texas

Your cruise control actually gets a signal during cranking (I don't know why, but it's there in the schematics), so you might have fried something, hopefully the new module will help...

If you didn't fry the voltage regulator in the alt, then you're looking good, I would think...Most of your other problems could be explained away by cold solder joints, which are ubiquitous on our cars...

Look up the FAQ's on the Mazdatrix website- they have a "how-to" for the power antenna problem...