Sooo the radio(aftermarket cd head unit) , horn and cigarette lighter in my car are all are dead. None of them have power. Checked the fuse block under the dash all of those are good. Pulled the radio and checked the fuse on it and its still good. Possible fusible link somewhere? I'm looking for any ideas at this point. Thanks
Mike Lowrey

The phantom courtesy light mystery
Do your courtesy ("floor") lights go on when you turn on the radio? Your radio only works when the dome lights are off? The problem is only a blown fuse, but the cause lies in yet another Pontiac engineering flaw. Back in 84, the cars had a common fuse for the Radio, Cigarette lighter and interior lights. For some reason, the interior lights, trunk release and power door locks got a separate fuse later (which in itself is a good idea). But once again, someone made a mistake, probably on a monday morning, or possibly a friday afternoon.
So the courtesy lights were moved to the "BAT" fuse along with the radio and cigarette lighter, but the remaining interior lights remained on the "CTSY/LID" fuse. All these lamps share a common connection to several switches to ground though. So all these lamps go on if you open a door, or turn on the IP dimmer all the way. The problem is, if one of these circuits blows its fuse and none of the lamp switches are on, the other circuit can draw power through the courtesy lamps. So, if the BAT fuse blows (a dime stuck in the cigarette lighter often does the trick), the radio still gets some power through the lamps. If you turn up the radio, the radio draws more current, and the lamps glow brighter. If you open the door, the radio is shorted, and the lamps go to full brightness.
This can be a problem if you are tracing a current drain in one of these circuits (they're both hot at all times), and unless you know it's just a blown fuse, it can be plain annoying. You can separate these circuits by either opening connector C200 (white and orange wires going into it, near the fusebox), but this only helps for troubleshooting. If you want to permanently cure the problem, cut the orange wire going into splice S210 and move it to splice S125.

Mine is in an 88 would this be the same issue? Never had any issues with the radio working when the dome lights were on.

This is what i did on my 88 i'm not sure if what i wrote on the precedent message would work for a 88


i checked the decklid solenoid , door switch , overhead wiring ,
lighter, trunk light , redid the ground on the front driver side marker , mirror switch ,
Finally i decides to go trough all the fuses .
And i played a lot with the one written" BAT" had around 15 20A fuses laying around , finally it started to work fine no more blowing fuses everything normal ??????
Now i remember it went that way the other time.

This is after looking in the search around 5-6 time .

And also you can save on fuses if you use the little tin circuit breaker 20A or 30A that you find on top of the ctsy location in the fuse box , they gonna break too but they will reset by themselves
You locate the circuit that the fuse that is blowing is for than you disconnect them things and you connect them one by one until you find wiich one is blowiing the fuse
Et voila
In this case the fuse was for ctsy, decklid, door locks .

I write this cause not many peoples have answered me on this TOPIC //www.fiero.nl/forum/Forum2/HTML/090288.html last week.

[This message has been edited by Robert 2 (edited 04-02-2008).]

quote Originally posted by Silentassassin185: Sooo the radio(aftermarket cd head unit) , horn and cigarette lighter in my car are all are dead. None of them have power. Checked the fuse block under the dash all of those are good. Pulled the radio and checked the fuse on it and its still good. Possible fusible link somewhere? I'm looking for any ideas at this point. Thanks Mike Lowrey

Fusible Link A supply these circuits. BAT fuse and radio, a lot of other stuff also. Fusible Link A is located at the Battery junction block.



Disconnect battery then remove the nut on the Battery junction block and CLEAN all connections.

If it don't work we will try something else, right?

Ed

------------------
Fino
www.feroce.net
Member National Kit Car Club www.kitcarclub.com
Lifetime Member CFOGi (Lot of good that does me)

[This message has been edited by Fino (edited 03-30-2008).]

quote Originally posted by Silentassassin185: Sooo the 1.radio(aftermarket cd head unit) , 2.horn and 3. cigarette lighter in my car are all are dead. None of them have power. Checked the fuse block under the dash all of those are good. Pulled the radio and checked the fuse on it and its still good. Possible fusible link somewhere? I'm looking for any ideas at this point. Thanks Mike Lowrey

Let me see if I can break this down for you Mike.

1. You always have the Radio too loud anyway, now when you go for a drive you can hear all those funny noises from the engine.(This is a good thing, I'm sure Mom would agree )
2. get one of those "horn broke, watch for finger" bumper stickers.
3. You don't smoke, I don't think anyone can smoke in your car, so its not needed .

Brad

Brad is right on.
I've already purchased two flashlights from Wal-mart that I can simply duct-tape to the hood next time the headlight motors fail. Also, my A/C is shot, but who needs it when I can just keep a spray bottle in the car? I can just spray myself down and lower the windows.
Now I just need a place to keep the spray bottle since there are no cup holders....

quote Originally posted by Ayrow: Brad is right on. I've already purchased two flashlights from Wal-mart that I can simply duct-tape to the hood next time the headlight motors fail. Also, my A/C is shot, but who needs it when I can just keep a spray bottle in the car? I can just spray myself down and lower the windows. Now I just need a place to keep the spray bottle since there are no cup holders....

I found a cup holder for you.



Ed

ED!!! warn a guy. Man.

I would recommend a few of those million candlepower units for the headlights Should be better than HID.

You could cut the top of the car off greatly improving the coolness of the interior.

Brad

Thanks guys, Its been a rainy drizzly mess here the past couple of days but I'll check all these ideas when it clears up and report with an update. pluses all around

Dug into it today and got it fixed thanks guys

quote Originally posted by Silentassassin185: Dug into it today and got it fixed thanks guys

Well, don't leave us in suspense, tell us what fixed it?

JazzMan