E30 Zone

I have had my 318is for almost a year and it has proved to be very reliable, however, last weekend the car developed a problem with the fuses.

It seems that every time i start the car the rev counter rises to 1,000 rpm only to fall back to the stop after a few seconds, all the other gauges do the same except for the speedo. I have replaced the fuse in the fuse box which was blown. This did cure it, but only till i started the car a second time when it blew the new fuse.

Since blowing the first fuse the car has also blown the fuses to the interior fan and to the reversing light.

Please could you advise?

Sorry not Mr Mooooore.
But Could be down to a loose connection behind your clocks.
Two nuts at the back come loose, take out the clocks and tighten these, if they are ok then could be an earthing problem somewhere for it to blow the fuses.

Load of apparently unrelated problems here! Could this be an alternator problem, with the voltage rising way above normal just after you start the car?
Keep the interior light on, and see if it lights much brighter than it should.

Sorry for the late reply,

I have just tried starting the car with the interior light on and it did get brighter. I presume this means a new alternator?

New (or decent secondhand) regulator pack. Two minutes to remove it from the back of the alternator.

After checking the alternator, which was ok, I decided that the problem must be a short somewhere in the reversing light wiring, as fuse Ten is common not only to the reversing light, but also the interior fan and the instrument panel and both of these appeared to be functioning without a problem. After Two minutes searching I found a small tear in the insulation around the wire that protrudes from the lower gear gaiter, the bare wires were shorting against the bare body of the transmission tunnel.

So about an inch of electrical tape and a cable tie to ensure this doesn’t happen again and the problem was resolved.

Thank you everybody for your help it is much appreciated.