Fuse short

VALERIESS

MEMBER
1994 CHEVROLET IMPALA
5.7L
V8
RWD
AUTOMATIC
60,000 MILES

My courtesy power door locks have a short. Fuse is blown immediately when I insert it. No interior lights, hood light, power door locks. My son read that there was a connection in the trunk to reprogram key-less entry remotes. He jumped the connection and the locks and trunk lock all clicked. How is this so if the fuse is shorted out? Back to my original concern, how do I find the short. Thank you for your time and patience.

Wednesday, January 18th, 2017 AT 4:02 PM

2 Replies

CARADIODOC

MECHANIC
34,094 POSTS

A simple trick to finding a short is to replace the blown fuse with a pair of spade terminals, then use small jumper wires to connect them to a twelve volt light bulb. A brake light bulb works well. When the circuit is live and the short is present, the bulb will be full brightness and hot so be sure it is not laying on the carpet or against a plastic door panel. Now you can unplug electrical connectors and move things around to see what makes the short go away. When it does, the bulb will get dim or go out.

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Wednesday, January 18th, 2017 AT 4:03 PM

STEVE W.

MECHANIC
14,097 POSTS

Under hood light is a different fuse than the interior lights and locks.

That said the most probable location for the short would be in the cables that go from the body to the doors. They flex and break or they flex and damage the insulation and short out with another wire. The process would be to remove the kick panel trim, the door panels and unplug the connectors to each door one at a time. One should make the light you added from Docs post go out.

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Thursday, January 19th, 2017 AT 9:49 AM