Interior Dash Lights/Tail lights fuse keeps blowing

cdkee

New Member
Hi everyone,

I just bought a 1995 Integra LS for my first car, been driving it to college for about 3 weeks now, and I'm loving every second of it.

However, a few days ago I went out and came back later than I usually do, and when I turned on my headlights I noticed the dashboard didn't light up. Even worse, I realized my tail lights were on the same fuse so I was essentially driving my black integra back home in the dark!

Upon further investigation I saw that the fuse for interior lights (dash) / taillights was blown so I replaced it with the spare. Still didn't work, and that fuse was also blown. Couldn't remember if the fuse was good when I put it in so I bought some more. Anyway, the fuse blows every time I turn on the headlights / taillights.

The side light bulbs (the ones all the way on the edge) are burnt out, could that be it?

What should I do next? I know according to the manual that this could mean "serious electrical issues"

Thanks for your help, I appreciate it.
 

acclude

cheap bastard
Start out checking/replacing all the exterior bulbss on that circuit. If any of those are outside of the OEM ohm spec then that *could* cause them to blow. I would probably just replace the tail and corner bulbs as it is since that's cheap and sounds like you need to do that anyways. Observe the wires going to the lights when you do that to see if any are frayed or exposed....if so fix them.

Also, does it have an aftermarket stereo in it? What you could try doing is keep the stereo off. Replace the fuse. Turn the headlights on and see if the fuse blows. If it doesn't, turn on the stereo to see if the fuse blows then. Chances are that someone wired up the stereo wrong and used the light wire as the ground instead of the actual ground. It could be other things but this is usually (like 90%+ of the time) the cause of issues like this.

If that's not it, then it sounds like you have a light wire shorted to ground *somewhere*. If the above doesn't work, get back here and we can throw some more ideas at you.
 

cdkee

New Member
Thanks for the reply!

It does have an aftermarket stereo in it, would it work if I took out the fuse for the radio and tested it then?
 

acclude

cheap bastard
yeah that would work as well. You just want to make sure the radio is NOT powered on whether it be by the power button or removing the fuse....the fuse would be the better way to tell for sure but usually you are fine just keeping it powered off. I'd say it's a good chance that's what's causing it.
 


jdmjim

nothing from nowhere
X2 man, ive seenso many problems with radio installs where the light wire is cut and left bare to hit ground
 

cdkee

New Member
Well, I took out the radio fuse, made sure it was off, put in another new fuse, and it blew :(

What else could be the issue?

Thanks
 

acclude

cheap bastard
Do you have fog lights or anything else aftermarket that would possibly tie into the light wire?
 


bfatdaintegra

IM motorvated
if u put a cd deck in you might have the illumination wire touching metal and its arcing behind that could be it or you have water in your taillights
 

AcuraIntegra95

New Member
check the aftermarket radio harness there may be a wire that came loose its a common problem unless you solder and heat shrink.
 

teggyb20

New Member
I had the same problem. Turned out the parking light bulb fell out of the socket and broke when it hit the ground i replaced the bulb and my tailights work now
 

denker420

New Member
Start out checking/replacing all the exterior bulbss on that circuit. If any of those are outside of the OEM ohm spec then that *could* cause them to blow. I would probably just replace the tail and corner bulbs as it is since that's cheap and sounds like you need to do that anyways. Observe the wires going to the lights when you do that to see if any are frayed or exposed....if so fix them.

Also, does it have an aftermarket stereo in it? What you could try doing is keep the stereo off. Replace the fuse. Turn the headlights on and see if the fuse blows. If it doesn't, turn on the stereo to see if the fuse blows then. Chances are that someone wired up the stereo wrong and used the light wire as the ground instead of the actual ground. It could be other things but this is usually (like 90%+ of the time) the cause of issues like this.

If that's not it, then it sounds like you have a light wire shorted to ground *somewhere*. If the above doesn't work, get back here and we can throw some more ideas at you.
Hi saw your post and was hoping you could help my tail lights arent working and my fuse used to blow until I took the after market radio out it stopped for a while but now I have no tail lights when I took a multimeter to the fuse box I noticed that fuse isnt getting any power
 
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