Tail lights dead, need help!

[BradW]

If you get a piece of wire, cut it in half and strip all the ends. Stick one end of each piece of wire into each side of the fuse holder and join one strand of each wire together and you have a fuse. Make sure to use automotive wire as the strands are nice and thin and blow easily with a short.

[crownv8]

Got to agree with Brad. There is a light in the T-bar shifter so you can see the gear position at night. Check to see that you don't have a short there. Should have been a plug near the T-bar. From memory dash light circuit is usually a pale green or green coloured wire and the earth wire is white with a black stripe.

Check the screws for the gearshift boot haven't gone through a wire???

[Bored?]

Are you sure all you've done is a manual conversion?

I had similar probs on my mz20, and it turned out that it was all my fault.

There is a wire above the centre console intended to be used for lighting the stereo when you turn your lights on.

When measured with a multimeter for earth with the headlights off, the wire has continuity to earth, but with the headlights on, goes +12v.

Anyway, if you were to say, intentionally short that wire to ground, as I did, your tail lights will stop working, and your tail light fuse will blow.

If you genuinely have a short, my advice is to get yourself an "induction meter", or go to an autoelectrician, who will have one. It is a very handy device if you do have to actually track down a short. Finding my bad wiring job took less than an hour using one.

[Bored?]

This is what an induction meter looks like, by the way:

http://hoytmeter.com/Merchant2/merch...ry_Code=INDUCT

To use it to find the short, you'll need to stick some wire in the fuse hole, and have someone spark the ends of the two wires, causing a short burst of current to flow through the wires to wherever the short is. When this happens, if you have the meter on the wire which has a short, you'll see the needle jump. Otherwise, you're not on the right wire.

[Big rob]

I hope all i have done is a manual conversion. Um checked all the wires in the gear shifter area and everything is fine. There is no shifter boot plate at the moment, that is on the 'to do' list so it hasnt affected anytihng.

I just found a spare circuit breaker, so resetable fuse here we go

[Big rob]

ok wierd shit, for some reason the problem has disapeared. I even put a 7.5A to see if it would blow compared to a 15A one and it is now not blowing fuse's plus all the lights work so awsomeo. Might get it checked out by an auto electrician just to be sure.

Thanks for all your help guys,
cya

[crownv8]

Ghosts in the system.