Another gauge fuse thread (2 Viewers)

[CruiserHacker]

I just bought an 80 series. After replacing the radio with an LCD, I've been blowing the gauge fuse intermittently. What's frustrating is that it comes and goes. Sometimes I'll go through several fuses in a row, then it will go away for a little while and I think I'm good. But inevitably it comes back. Sometimes it goes right when the engine turns over. Sometimes after a short while of driving. Unfortunately I can reliably reproduce it, making it a real PITA to debug.

It seems to be something positional--maybe a bare wire gets shifted ever so slightly and shortz to ground. Right now I've got the dash panel removed and everything unplugged. I tried wiggling the wires but the fuse held. Then it went 5 minutes after I started driving down the road. Worth noting: other than plugging the radio in using the Crutchfield supplied adapter (I soldered/hear shrank all connection points) the only thing I've done is splice the right rear light to automatically turn on the backup camera. But the fuse will blow when I'm not backing up (thus no power going to rear back up light) so I (maybe foolishly) don't think that's the problem.

I've read a bunch of the posts which have been helpful to frame the problem (especially @vegas amazingly thorough and undoubtedly frustrating battle with his gauge fuse). But so far I'm having trouble finding the root cause, so happy for any fresh ideas.

 

[Rwhat]

Does your power windows and climate control go out?

 

[jonheld]

In reference to the radio, the GAUGE fuse only supplies power to the dash cooling fan. The radio itself is powered off of the 15A CIG and the 10A DOME fuses.
HOWEVER, the GAUGE fuse supplies 54 various other circuits.
That said, if the installation of the radio started this issue, then I would suggest starting there.

 

[CruiserHacker]

Does your power windows and climate control go out?

I'm not 100% sure. The temps have been mild here so I didn't have the climate running. I did have the windows down once and they stopped working after the fuse went and started right back up with a new fuse. But since I made this post I haven't blown a fuse yet so can't confirm.

 

[CruiserHacker]

In reference to the radio, the GAUGE fuse only supplies power to the dash cooling fan. The radio itself is powered off of the 15A CIG and the 10A DOME fuses.
HOWEVER, the GAUGE fuse supplies 54 various other circuits.
That said, if the installation of the radio started this issue, then I would suggest starting there.

Thanks. Yeah I don't think it's the radio itself since it was staying on with the fuse gone and the fuse was blowing with the radio disconnected. Plus looking at the EWD confirmed that there weren't paths through the radio.

My suspicion is that there is a stripped/bare wire or otherwise exposed connection somewhere in the dash that got into a bad position when I was installing the radio. As mentioned above I havent had an issues in the last two days so am tempted to put the dash back together and see what happens...