Bad Hack Job Amp Wiring = No Guage Cluster!
 

So the previous owner of my 85 4Runner used to have some subs and an amp in the back of the truck. He took them out before he sold it to me, which is fine. Problem is that he did a really bad hack job at running the wires. He also just left the 12+ wire that ran straight from the battery to the amp CONNECTED TO THE BATTERY when he took out the amp. He didn't even put a fuse on the wire...then he just stuffed the 3 wires (12+, ground, remote) under one of the rear seats. No wire nuts or anything. So today when I'm folding the seats flat to put a desk in there, the 12+ contacts the hinge on the seat which is grounded. Sparks go flying and almost start a fire on my upholstry. I was trying to carefully knock it away without zapping myself. Eventually the sparking stopped. I open the hood to just disconnect the 12+ from the battery, and I find that the wire had melted. The sparking stopped because the wire melted off right next to the battery...

So then everything was fine. I get 4 miles down the road and my entire guage cluster goes dead, everything except the Speedo and the Gas Guage. My turn signals wouldn't even work. First, I check all the fuses, sure enough, a fuse had blown. Once replaced I continue on my way, get another block down the road, and it blew again.

Any suggestions on what might be shorting out now and blowing that fuse?

Thanks.

Nobody? :(

first off - 12v DC wont zap as bad as AC will.

Sounds like something melted in the harness.

How did that 12v wire get from the battery to the rear?

Usually amp wires are pertty heavy guage.
If the heavy guage wire melted off at the battery the wire was pertty durned hot.

It probably melted anything near it as it went through the firewall into the cabin..

Sorry for the discouraging news..

Yeah...that's what I'm afraid of. The wire was only 18 guage or so...also not recommended. The wire is run under the carpet, for the most part, so I haven't been able to see what else it might have melted yet. I was just hoping someone might have a suggestion that might lead to another fuse somewhere hidden. :(

Check under the dash and see if he tapped into the dash wiring so he could play without the key on. Other then that follow the wire and look for a ground / burned wire somwhere in the line.

Does the amp have any backlight circuit that is connected into the dash lights? If so, try disconnecting that wire and see what happens. If that doesn't fix it, see where the he power wire is tapped into. I had trouble in my '85 when I swapped the radio that was in it for another one. Tried to reuse the PO's wiring and lost all sorts of other lights. Ended up taping all those wires off and ran all new power and ground wires and no problems since.

So on Saturday the problem got worse. The truck completely died. It drove fine for about 150 miles (just with no guage cluster), then died completely on Saturday just before I was about to head up to Carnage Canyon. To make a really long story short. I eventually traced the short back to the Alternator. Somehow the wire burned out the Alternator, which is somehow sending surges to the guage cluster circuit. So I swapped in a new alternator at about 10PM on Saturday, so far no problems. I still have no idea how it burned out, nothing was turned on when the wire shorted out. I thought for sure that the idea of other wires being melted was spot on, but I didn't find any other damaged wires after ripping out all the carpet and tracing that bad wire. I guess it drove me 150 miles just from the battery's charge, then died from not being recharged.

Anywho, hopefully it is fixed for good, 70 miles so far, no problems. :D

find the small wire for the amp, the remote wire.

make sure it is capped off so it wont ground out.

is your stereo being wierd at all?
it could be from that..