Interesting clock/cd player/cig lighter problem (wiring)
 

Alright so after I did my interior swap and was plugging everything bag in and hooking everything back up, my clock, cd player, and cig lighter ALL didn't work. Those were the only things that didn't work. Also, the idiot lights worked but not the clock, I thought that was weird. Went through lots of stuff, wiring, fuses, etc, nothing seemed to fix it and I couldn't find the problem.

Last night I was driving my car at night for the first time since the interior swap and I turned on my lights. Behold the clock worked! I was so surprised that I decided to go and throw my CD player and radar detector in to test them with the lights on as well. They worked to! So what's going on? As soon as I turn my lights on everything works, as soon as I turn my lights off they stop working. I thought this was really weird.

Also, the clock works when the lights are on, and if I turn my lights off and then back on it DOESN'T reset. But every time I turn my car off/back on and turn on the lights to check the clock, it has reset itself back to 1. As long as the car is on, though, it wont reset.

What the hell is wrong with my wiring, I'm baffled.

kinda like mine.
my volts meter act up too.
one on a while both the clock and volt meter work
some time only one work
most of the time niether of them work.
i stall haven't got the time to check them out yet.
sorry i couldn't help, just want to let you know you're not the only one.

mine sometime shrift hard to first/reversed may turn them back on hehe

sounds like when you did you interior swap, you swapped some harnesses and mixed series.

No harnesses were swapped from other series or anything. All stock harnesses were left in place and plugged back in during the swap.

what exactly did you swap??? gauge surround?

Put in full black carpet, took the dash and every single panel out and dyed it. No gauges or harnesses were swapped, just dyed panels and swapped carpet.

sounds like bad grounds, intermittent things like that are usually associated with bad grounds, because when certain "movements" happen it may regain a connection. such as with my door light switch i just cleaned up the grounds on the switch and door and now it works great.

so now you rproblem is finding what and where the grounds are going bad

Maybe. But I find it strange that all this happened when I was swapping the carpet and such. Never had any problems before, and now all 3 are like this.

i would like to know where the ground connector is.... anyone know?

hummm clock works but only intermitantly. never resets like yours tho. i think it is grounding cuz sometime swhen i hit a bump it turns back on. sounds liek the same thing except somehow your is linked to your lights

Well, what I was thinking is that the clock has a dimmer when the lights come on so maybe that has something to do with it? Still doesn't explain the cd player and cig lighter though

sounds like either harness didn't get plugged in all way, or you have a plug or two backwards or mismatched.

and if it was grounds (why does everyone always think grounds???) they wouldn't work, regardless of the light switch position.

Did you remove the dash harness or ???

and you did check to see that you don't have a bad fuse or loose fuse socket??? Sometimes people put fuse box taps in and strech the terminals. You can test this by removing the fuse box covere and pressing the fuses back and forth.

I agree, didn't really think it was grounds.

Removed the dash, unplugged the harness and left them in the same locations, ie the parts that hooked to the dash came with it after being plugged in and that parts that were behind the dash stayed there until it went back in. Then they were plugged back in.

Already checked all fuses like 3 times, they're fine.


Any ideas on which plug might be the problem or where I should start? I'm really not looking forward to pulling the dash... again..

When I get home tonight, or in the morning (I am using my hand held right now), I'll look through the books and see where the common connectors are.

If I forget by Saturday night, PM or remind me.

Thanks a BUNCH, I really appreciate it.

Stock FC dash wiring.

http://www.iupload.net/062004/rx7dashFC.JPG


Yes I have one sitting in my driveway.

Bump.

Still a problem and trying to track down the misconnected piece of the harness, no luck yet :(

The only common spot appears to be at the fuse box and is directly related to the cig lighter fuse.

So, I would be checking the back of the fuse box (or again that fuse).

Hmmm, that's weird. I've checked the fuse plenty of times, I know it's not the fuse. What exactly should I be looking for behind the fuse box? Just to make sure the plug/s are all fully in?

Alright, checked the fuse AGAIN and it's fine. As far as I can tell all the connectors and such around the fuse box area are fine and plugged in. I don't really know how to check behind the fuse box, though. Any more suggestions?

Searcing brought me here...:)
 

dDub...did you ever figure out this issue with your gauges. My car has the same problems/symptoms. Everything SEEMS to be ok. Just wondering what you did to make it work. Thanks.

Turned out the red/black (iirc) was spliced into the cd player. This is a hot wire and was causing all the problems, plus my memory wire and a couple others were screwed up in the cd player too.

red/black is dash lights behind the radio...

Err yah, red/black was spliced into power instead of lighting, and my CD player didn't need the switched light source it's lit all the time.

Then I also had problems with blue/red because this wire is always hot and was causing some of the problems.

https://www.rx7club.com/2nd-generation-specific-1986-1992-17/headlight-wiring-problem-372002/

That thread goes through everything Wayne helped me with and how I eventually fixed the problems.