Interior lamp issue as of 7/15/08

[ptrfair]

okay so heres the deal...last night i replaced the mini fuse for the interior lamps #27 under the backseat. (a few days ago they went dead). I changed the fuse and the lamps worked again. well tonight i went to open the door and the lamps did not go on.

I unplugged the battery, changed the fuse and plugged the battery back in and i saw a spark of light from the fuse box...the fuse blew again. Im totally lost.

[Archon]

Which fuse did you check? You may also want to check the interior lamp relay in the rear fuse box.

[ptrfair]

underseat fuse box minifuse 27
the micro relay 51 i have no idea how to check if its bad. 27 looks fine. i have a gut feeling that the micro relay is bad. which is odd, i thought they never went. then again i break everything. haha

[Archon]

Check the DIMR fuse (14) as well as the IP fuse (30). They run other circuits too, but check them just in case.

The easiest way to check the relay is to swap in another one that has the same number from the fuse block, and see if the problem goes away. If you have a meter, set it to measure resistance, and connect it between terminals 30 and 87 on the relay. It should read open. Then apply 12volts between 85 and 85 while still measuring the resistance, and it should drop to zero - or close to it. The terminal numbers are marked on the relay.

[ptrfair]

im gonna get my hands on a meter. the micro relay wasnt it. ill post back in a day or 2 when i get time and patience to mess with it.
ha thank you archon for your help. much appreciated.

[ptrfair]

just an update, everytime i throw a new fuse in it blows. i checked all the bulbs and every last one is fine. the micro relays are fine. i cant understand it. alot of money for a car with no interior lights.

if anyone at all has a idea of what my cars problem might be, im all ears. thanks all.

[00Beast]

Sounds like a bad ground or a short. the reason there are fuses is because if there is a short, then the fuse blows, preventing your lights, or whatever from blowing up instead.

[Pontiacdad]

You had said in the chat room last night that it blows fuses even with all the bulbs out of the sockets.
You have a short in one of the wires going to your interior bulbs.

My guess would be a foot well lamp or front door.

Your looking for a dark blue with a white stripe wire. You might get lucky moving the wire harness around, try the one in the drivers door?

[ptrfair]

i know the 00 has the lamps in the door but the 01 doesnt for some reason.
I'll start and find the wire from the foot lamps and follow them. how do i tell where the wire is damaged? would it be all burnt out in a spot on the wire or what??
thankyou for the help last night and now. its really appreciated

[Pontiacdad]

Welded is not out of the question but I doubt it, more likely some bare wire rubbed through the insulation or a bent over tab in one of the light sockets.

[ptrfair]

Hey ...

so i finally had time to get the headliner down and literally rip the interior apart.
Lesson 1... never unplug a plug unless you're sure what it is. the entire time that i have been trying to fix my lights shorting out, i was disconnecting the Sunroof. So all of last week i was doing absolutely nothing to help fix the short, i was on the wrong side of the car. but the good thing is everything in the headliner is secure as far as wires.

Right now, this evening the lights all work. If i unplug the RIM connector located on the drivers side rear pillar...the floor lamps work, i have no issues ever. If i connect that RIM plug (which gives me light to the headliner lights) and if i hit a bump in the road at a good 35 mph, sometimes it shorts. i drove 20 miles today and knock on wood...no problem.

Is there a ballast that might be going bad on me somewhere? i really dont think its a short. if it is i sure as heck cant find it and i took the car apart.

[ptrfair]

Bump. the lights all died again tonight after working fine for 2 weeks. Disconnected RIM connecter in the rear window side pilliar and the floor/trunk lights up but thats it.
The second i connect that pilliar plug everything shorts out.

Im Absolutley stuck. does anyone know whats at fault????

[ptrfair]

just wondering because they died again today after hours of work...

where exactly is the spot where the ground wire is bolted to the car? I wanna trace it.

[ptrfair]

Huge laugh.... I unlocked the car tonight, Just as i opened the door the lights all went out again. I couldnt stop laughing! Replaced the small fuse and problem solved however im wondering why after 1 year all the sudden that would happen??

perhaps a cheap fuse?

[Archon]

Hard to say for sure. Intermittent electrical problems can be a real PITA to track down. Harbor Freight had some problems with their fuses, but I believe that it was the opposite problem. They wouldn't blow when they were supposed to.

[ddalder]

I read through some of your last few posts and you never really indicated if you did anything in the way of repairs that seemed to correct this for the past year or if it just quit blowing fuses. Did you?

The connector on the driver side 'C' pillar is not the RIM connector. The RIM has two connectors that plug into the bottom of it and it's mounted behind the rear seat back. The connector you're referring to is called the "Headliner Harness to Main Body Harness In-Line Connector".

Your most likely cause is a fault in one of your sun visors. This has been an issue several times in the past. Leave the headliner harness connector at the 'C' pillar plugged in. Disconnect one sun visor at a time. I'd probably start with the driver side since it likely gets the most use/movement. There will be a small MetriPack 2 cavity (black) connector that plugs into the headliner harness. If your problem goes away, you've found the fault. You'll need to remove the fasteners that hold the visor in place in order to access this. In some cars the wiring has been stapled to the headliner and you'll need to pull that out before you're likely to gain access to the connector. In my car they weren't, but it's a newer model year.

I recently spoke to one person who had part of the headliner wiring harness burn up before the fuse blew. I don't have all the circumstances around this so I can't comment further.

In any event, you can try just replacing the fuse but I can almost certainly guarantee this won't be a long term fix. Your diagnostics to date point to something in the headliner. Start with the most obvious, then work towards the less likely.

I don't have documentation immediately handy, but IIRC, there is more than one ground going to the headliner. I know that at least one of them terminates at the splice pack behind the left rear tail light. In any event, I think chasing this down is not good use of your time. A ground shorting to ground will not be your problem, nor is it likely to be a bad ground in this model year. In almost every case such as this, you want to trace the supply side of the circuit.

[ptrfair]

Okay, i should mention that i purchased a new RIM from Haro back in july 2008 and the problem went away. If in the event this probelm occurs again, ill be looking at the sun visors. Never once thought of that.

thank you very much.

[ddalder]

Bump. the lights all died again tonight after working fine for 2 weeks. Disconnected RIM connecter in the rear window side pilliar and the floor/trunk lights up but thats it.
The second i connect that pilliar plug everything shorts out.

Based on this, the only thing you achieved by disconnecting it was to remove the headliner wiring from the equation. I'm very suspicious as to whether the RIM was truly the problem. Being it has been an intermittent problem, you may have simply had a period of the short not recurring. I'll be interested in knowing what finally happens here.

[ptrfair]

I'll post if the problem occurs again. It just appeared odd that the car was just sitting in the driveway and they just died. If and when the problem occurs ill look at the sunvisors. How would i fix the short if thats in the visors? Rewire the actual visor at fault or what?

[00Beast]

Get a new visor.