95 Astro Wiring Problems

[lksmith69]

My 95 Astro keeps blowing the Gauges Fuse, when fuse is blown not only do the gauges not work but the charging system fails, does anyone here have any ideas on where to start? The alternator and battery have both been replaced and as long as fuse is new and not blown everything works as it is supposed to, after usually 10-15 min the fuse blows, when this happens the charging system quits, but with a good fuse in the alternator charges around 13.8

Any ideas?

[rlsllc]

No ideas, but another member (James, V8 Famvan) turned me on to an awesome procedure for finding problems that blow fuses:

How to make a simple short finder:
Use an old headlight (sealed beam) & attach 2 wires to the light. Remove the fuse & put the 2 wires to the 2 terminals that the fuse plugs into. (essentially putting the headlight in place of the fuse - don't spread or damage the terminals in the fuse box) The headlight has the ability to carry enough current to run your circuit.
NOTE: The headlight may come on dimly when items on the circuit are turned on - this is normal.
When your circuit shorts, the headlight will come on brightly. Using this, you can use this to determine what motion/movement causes the short.
For example: You make up & install this short finder & move the wiring harnesses around. You find when you move a particular harness in a certain direction, the light goes bright. You have narrowed your short to this area. Investigate carefully to find the chaffing.

The nice thing about this is that it does not blow or burnt out like fuses & still protects your harness like a fuse is supposed to do.

And it worked like a charm.

[astrozam]

Good find Roy, I'm not surprised who you found that gem of info from at all

[rlsllc]

Good find Roy, I'm not surprised who you found that gem of info from at all

I'm just miffed that I didn't come up with that idea being that I'm a cobber.

It was one of those "Oh yeah, cool" things.


He has saved my butt about three times now that IIRC. Once about a harness inside the fuel tank for the pump, the ignition module controling the fuel injector pulses, and this one here. Prolly even more, who knows.

I guess that is why he is a ASE GM Grand Master Technician.