rotarypower12

so the other day i put a aftermarket radio in my fd, before that everything was fine and even the first half of the day driving the car was fine i parked let it sit for 4 hours started it up and blew my 15 amp tail fuse.. put a new fuse in and it blew again. the thing is when i put a new fuse in and turn the lights on the tail lights go on but my dash lights dont. and then when i finally turn the car on thats when it blows the fuse. so i believe i have a short somewhere in my dash. not too sure im not good with electrical, looking for any bit of advice.
i think when i put the aftermarket radio in it might have moved some wires or messed up the insulation maybe. i took the radio out and put a new fuse in and it did the same thing and the fuse blew again.
any advice would help. hoping to try and fix it myself instead of bringing it in and having someone rip my dash apart :/ lol
TIA

mar3

iTrader: (8)

Can't help with the question but I see you've been here since March 2009 and are only now getting stumped so I'm moving this to the regular 3rdgen tech board.

Mario III

rotarypower12

Thanks bud. Yea I been on the forums reading up for awhile now but I recently just purchased my fd a month ago. Tried looking for my problem but couldn't find much so figured id ask. Or if anyone has a site they can link up. Thanks.

ksu-chewie

iTrader: (14)

Did you use a wiring harness or did you manually splice wires? did you use crimp connectors or did you solder?
How did you ground the new stereo?

rotarypower12

i bought a wiring harness but had to splice the wires from the wiring harness to the aftermarket stereo harness. i twisted and used electrical tape for the wiring and i grounded the wire down by the passengers left foot theres a metal bar right behind the plastic.
dont know if any of that was right but the radio works fine. i sort of think that after i put the radio in and all the wiring going down into the dash it may have hit/moved/something one of the wires either for the illumination on the left of the radio and or a wire for the glovebox. thats just one of my theories. not really sure what to be looking for though.

ksu-chewie

iTrader: (14)

Twisting wires and wrapping them with tape is not a good idea for long term. It is ok for testing but afterwards you need to crimp them together or preferably solder & shrink-wrap. The electric tape can unravel and cause shorts. You can also reuse the factory ground instead of running a wire all the way to the passenger footwell. I used a terminal spade on my car for testing and the cut the factory growing plug and soldered.

rotarypower12

Yea I gotcha. It wasn't really for longterm purpose cause I was gonna switch the speakers and wiring anyway this was just the first day I drove with it. But you think that could have shorted out another fuse because the radios hooked up to the cigarette lighter fuse not the tail light fuse. And that's where I'm having my problem. Also the radio was still working fine if the radio wiring was messed up the cigarette fuse would have blew causing the radio not to work right? I'm thinking after I put the radio all the way in and all the wires going in and back down somewhere hit another wire running in the tail fuse.

ksu-chewie

iTrader: (14)

I've read a lot on this forum how the FD was wired poorly by mazda, so anytime I do wiring I "go the extra step" to prevent any interference or shorts. My brother is a certified electrician and has shown me how unreliable black electrical tape can be.
Having said that I am not a FD electrical expert and neither is my brother. Conventional wisdom says if the fuses were good before you wired in the radio, and after wiring the radio the tail fuse is blowing, you did something wrong with the wiring. Have you tried unhooking the radio wiring you did to see if you tail light fuse is still blowing? Can you take a picture of how you've got everything wired?

rotarypower12

wow yea your a genius im a dummy lmao when i said i took the radio out i literally just took the radio out but didnt remove the wiring.. i just removed the wiring and a piece of electrical tape was off a brown wire i was not using. i put a new fuse in and everything works now. Thanks for all the info if i woulda never checked that who knows i woulda been ripping my dash apart lol. now its time to solder and shrink wrap all these wires together. dont want this happening again lol.
thanks again doofy you saved my day!

ksu-chewie

iTrader: (14)

yep, black tape sucks. Glad you got it figured out, blowing fuses can be really frustrating.