15 amp fuse keeps blowing out any thoughts?

[monkeyslide17]

89 s13 coupe well goto the gas station and found out that my brake lights are not working, so pulled out the light tester and come to find out the fuse is blowen. all the other fuse's are fine, just the brake lights. well i replaced the fuse and tapped the brake and the fues pops right in front of me, change the fuse from 15, to 20, to 30 and all pop right in front of me again. roll from the gas pump to an empty spot and what do you know put in another 30 fuse and its works, roll more then half way home and then it blows out on me again. any thoughts?? im confused at this point :confused: . I have not done anything to my car that might have crossed any wires, have not changed anything.

[downshift_sideways]

Check for faulty headlamp + tail lamp wiring. Check all your grounds.

Make sure the car is off, when you put the fuses in.

[SRpetey]

I had the same problem. It turned out to be that my tire had rub and peeled some wires of the harness in the wheel well. But if your car isnt lower and there no way that the tire could have cause damage to the harness than check what was mention above.

[MURPHY]

^correct. something has shorted to ground causing a fuse to blow

most likely haha.

installed a new cd player lately? i had SAME problem lol. but it was cd player orange (iirc) wire and the brake light switch was stuck keeping em on if a fuse was left in.

[kognition]

Yup, you have a juice wire that is likely grounding somewhere.

[Gnnr]

Make sure you have the correct bulb inside the housing, and also make sure no water has leaked inside, which tends to happen if the seals go bad on the taillights.

[monkeyslide17]

So this morning I hit up autozone, got some 15amp fuse's. I replaced the fuse once again, when the car sits still I can tap on the brakes no prob, the fuse is good I pulled off got to the light and pop. I get to work witch is arcoss the street, Put a new fuse in again, pull the speaker that blew last night and pull the radio, all the wires look fine, can any one tell me where else that i might need to look?? any help would be fine. At least not to take to the dealer. Thanks for the help

[bo2o]

check the front harness. under the front fenders.
tell some one to check your lighs for anything abnormal.
like one lite brighter then the other. and or any external lights you intsalled.

[kognition]

You should also go pick up a 20 dollar multimeter at Radio Shack, and learn how to use it for checking wires. Invaluable tool. But it sounds like the wires are moving somewhere and shorting, like the previous posters mentioned to check under the front fenders for abrasion damage

[Skids2212]

check for short to ground most common problem for blowing out fuses

[monkeyslide17]

Thanks for all the help, So with the multimeter? is there any voltage that I am pose to be looking for? Dont know how to use those things:tweak: . Ill be seaching on how to use one next.

So pretty much i should pull the finder well? witch side would the wires be run? pass, or driver side? and test the wire to posabily see if there is a short.

[kognition]

You first should do a current draw check to see what kind of current is being drawn while the ignition is off. You do that by disconnecting the ground terminal to the batt and touching the red lead to the ground cable, and the black lead to batt ground. Set the multimeter to milliamps, see what it says. If you have an alarm, you will probably see 5 to 10 milliamps i am guessing. In any case, there should be very little to no current being drawn with ignition off. If it is a frayed or pinched wire, chances are it is hitting some bare metal on the chassis or a second wire could be frayed and they are hitting while driving, and touching also.

Thanks for all the help, So with the multimeter? is there any voltage that I am pose to be looking for? Dont know how to use those things:tweak: . Ill be seaching on how to use one next.

So pretty much i should pull the finder well? witch side would the wires be run? pass, or driver side? and test the wire to posabily see if there is a short.

[monkeyslide17]

Would the harness be on the driver side fender? or pass?

[Lucient]

check the wire under your arm rest that powers the ash tray light. That wire over time rubs against the body from pressure on the arm rest and eventually rubs the insulation off and grounds out. This is why you are able to pull off and then all of a sudden it pops. It happened to me a few months ago and I had to take my car apart to find it.

[idlafie]

89 s13 coupe well goto the gas station and found out that my brake lights are not working, so pulled out the light tester and come to find out the fuse is blowen. all the other fuse's are fine, just the brake lights. well i replaced the fuse and tapped the brake and the fues pops right in front of me, change the fuse from 15, to 20, to 30 and all pop right in front of me again. roll from the gas pump to an empty spot and what do you know put in another 30 fuse and its works, roll more then half way home and then it blows out on me again. any thoughts?? im confused at this point :confused: . I have not done anything to my car that might have crossed any wires, have not changed anything.

MK...
First & foremost, don't ever exceed the rated amperage listed for a fused circuit on ANY electrical circuit!! You'll burn the insulation on the wires & create the potential for an electrical fire. If it says 10 or 15 amps for the circuit, stay with a 10 or 15 amp fuse. If you use a greater amperage fuse such as a 20 or 30 amp fuse on a electrical circuit that only is supposed to use 10 or 15 amps, the current draw will melt the insulation on the wiring exposing the wire & can possibly lead to an electrical fire. The fuse acts as a safety device preventing that possibility. You bypass that safety device & you are only making your problem worse!!

Okay...with that said....your problem sounds like it's with the wires on your brake light circuit only- a circuit which is easy to work on provided you know what you are doing!! It doesn't sound like your driving lights/marker lights are shorting out cuz you can still see your dash lights when you drive at night. When your dash lights & front/side/back marker lights aren't lighting up, it's because somebody did a bad job installing your car radio....they hook up the wrong wires or short out the wires to your illumination circuit....or you have a short in the wires leading to your front/side/back lights. Everybody else seems to think that in their replys to you....

The brake circuit primarily consists of power coming from your fuse box, the electrical switch at the top of your brake pedals and the wires which run to the back of your car to the brakelights - bulbs & sockets. S13's are notorious for having bad connections at either the brake light socket or ground point on the brake light socket. You'll have to open your trunk, remove your tail light from the inside of the housing & inspect the wires leading to your brake lights. Chances are 1) the base of the electrical connector where the bulb twists into has shorted out - pull the bulb out & look into the socket bottom & see if the bottoms are melted. If it has, you'll have to replace the bottom part of the socket with a two wire replacement you can get at your local auto parts store for like $2.99. (Sorry I don't have a picture of what it looks like or the exact name of the part). Or 2). The ground wire connecter on the tail light assembly has shorted out. Either repair will require you to cut out the back connector/connection & replace them. It's an easy repair...you'll just need wire cutters/crimpers, electrical connectors, (butt plugs...don't laugh...that's the name of the electrical connectors!!), and the replacement parts which will cost you less than $5 bucks and a test light/multimeter to make sure the connections work once you repair everything.

It's an easy repair to do....I've done them several times on S13's. It's a damn shame I haven't done a photo-writeup on how to do it.

Anyhow, hope this helps!!!

ID