Dash Lights Blowing Fuse

[mrLEE30]

to assist brian for a change

from the light switch look for the Grey and Yellow wire this is for the LHS front side light (and the rear light only in park position) Grey and white is for RHS

and the Grey and Red wire feeds all other lights including interior and licence and rear lights.

thus turning on your park lights will go a long way to isolating if the fault is with the rear lights or front lights. dont forget you can turn on the left then the right side. if this does not blow the fuse then look more closely at the licence plate lights followed by interior lights as fed from the grey and red cable.

[yeah_mick]

cheers for the ideas guys, ill give them a go after my dinner.

[yeah_mick]

i tried the parking light thing and couldnt get them to come on, am i right in thinking that you just put the indicator on whilst the car is off and it should turn the side lights on, on the side youve indicated to?

[mrLEE30]

you turn the indicator on but keep pushing the indicator stalk on past the indicator portion and it should "click" at the very end. hold in this position and turn off ignition. side lights/rear light will come on but no interior lights. you choose the side depending on which indicator you apply.

try both sides and ensure front and rear lights come on. does this blow the fuse? do both sides blow the fuse?

[yeah_mick]

only just read you reply, so ill have to test that tomorrow as ive only just got in from work and need to sleep now, but on my way home from work, the dash lights intermitantly went on and off as i was going over bumps, i have fuse 23 pulled out atm as it kept melting. i popped the bonnet when i got home to check i definately had fuse 23 out, whilst i was there i pulled fuse 22 out and just put it in slot 23 and that got the dash lights and BOTH rear lights, im under the impresseion that fuse 22 will power the nearside rear light and fuse 23 is power to the offside rear light? im starting to thing maybe there is a loose connection somewhere making these to join, is it possible to open the fuse box? as fuse 23 has got very hot and melted itslef numerous times im thinking maybe that has done some damage inside aswell? also would somebody be able to tell me where the wireing for the rear lights runs through the car and the wireing for the dash so i can inspect all that for breaks and dodgy connections,

[yeah_mick]

this evening on the way home from work, i had a bit of a rough ride round a roundabout but after that moment of bouncing around the little light that lights up the symbols above the light switch and fog light switches lit up for the first time ever in the year and a half ive had the car. there must be something lose some where as this went back out again later on.

[mrLEE30]

fuse 23 does power both rear lights and licence lights, plus front RH side light when lights turned on from switch and in park

22 is front LH side light on switch (and rear LH light when in park position)

[Brianmoooore]

this evening on the way home from work, i had a bit of a rough ride round a roundabout but after that moment of bouncing around the little light that lights up the symbols above the light switch and fog light switches lit up for the first time ever in the year and a half ive had the car. there must be something lose some where as this went back out again later on.

That's just a bulb with a broken filament, and not in any way relevant to this problem. Bulbs often 'repair' themselves temporarily if shaken with power applied.

[yeah_mick]

i had given up on this problemfor a while as it was doing my head in, ive been driving the past few months with only 1 rear light and no dash lights, but the weathers getting bad and i do really need to stop putting this off and get it fixed. ive just had front and rear bulbs out and number plate bulbs but it was still blowing the fuse, just testing it now with the parking light on. how would i go about disconnectiong all the dash lights to test if they are at fault?

[yeah_mick]

it took a while but it did start to kill the fuse with just parking lights on, it was red hot when i pulled it out and all the plastic was melting on the fuse.

[Brianmoooore]

How did you "just have the parking lights on"?

[yeah_mick]

with what was said above, i had the ignition on, pushed the indicator right up to the 2nd click, held it there, then turned ignition off and then let the stalk rest on the 1st click.

hope that makes sense.

[Brianmoooore]

That's how I hoped you had done it. (A good proportion of E30 owner's don't even know the function exists!)
You seem to have narrowed the fault to whichever side parking lights you had on. (Which was?)
Do you have a roof mounted check panel in this car?

[yeah_mick]

it was offside parking lights, ive not sorted this with the help of my mate last night. when i changed the front valance, i had just caught the feed for the front light behind it, so over time it has worn through the insulation and was shorting out as it vibrated and touched stuff, its all free and insulated now and i can see my speedo again. but thanks for your help as it did help me narrow it down to what lights was causing it, then i just had to fiddle with things in them areas.