Fog Switch / Blowing fuse / Pulling Hair Out / Help Me Please! (1 Viewer)

[snp32]

I hope someone can help me. Last week I connected a Slee auxiliary harness with high-beam jumper to an OEM fog switch (00550-35976).

I tested it with my hella 500s and it worked perfectly.

So this week I routed it through the fire wall and into my cabin. I had to lengthen the wires to reach the center console. I soldered them and protected with heat shrink, attached wires exactly as per past week, (light at top: ground top, hot middle, switch bottom) then installed the switch in the coin slots and found a perfect ground right under the lid to the shifters. Easy as pie.

Tried it out and... 30 amp blown fuse. Ran a long line to the original ground I used last week under the hood. Tested again... blown fuse.

The only two things I can think of that I did differently than last week were
1.) The wire I used to lengthen the hot line was 14 gauge soldered to the original 16 gauge Slee harness wire and
2.) I was drinking beer last time.

I didn't think wire gauge would make the difference, especially blowing a 30 amp fuse.

I've tried with the engine running and without.. and have also tested the beer theory... still no dice.

Any help would be appreciated!

 

[sleeoffroad]

You should not be grounding anything if you using auxiliary harness. The two wires that go to the switch is both sides of the switch circuit. The only place that is grounded is at the battery for the relays

 

[snp32]

Thanks Christo, I removed the ground and it still blew the fuse. Also remember it worked last week with the ground in place. At this point I'm thinking maybe water got in somewhere and could be causing the short? Otherwise I'm at a loss.

 

[snp32]

Frustrated but SOLVED:
So I bought a cheap circuit tester. After learning how to use it for both positive circuits and detecting shorts (it didn't detect the short with the ground to negative terminal method for some reason) I plugged and unplugged and traced back every step in the system. In the end I found that the source of the problem was unfortunately the very last thing I tried. The Culprit? One of my brand new Hella lights had water in it. It rained once last week. I bought three different lights and ended up keeping the cheapest ones because they worked fine for my needs. Guess you learn the hard way. Good thing is that I'm now a master solderer.