Short in my electrical system? [solved?]

Shogun

My car has been acting funny. If I go around a curve sharply my antenna will go down and my bass will quit playing. Then vice versa. I've been shrugging it off as its been going on for a couple weeks. Well this weekend both my right tail light and my right headlight went out. I fixed the tail light and my headlight started working again though I don't know how. BTW my headlights are xenon HID lights if that matters. My right head light went out again and I'm not sure if the bulb is shot or if the system is fried or what. My guess is the culprit is my sub and amplifier. I've already disconnected everything except the power cable to the battery and its still no dice. Thoughts?

Also I do not care in the least if this means I have to ditch the sub and the amp. Sick of them both anyways. All I want is to somehow fix this problem without having to purchase new lights.

supabeast

Have you checked for blown fuses?

Shogun

supabeast wrote:

Have you checked for blown fuses?

The HID lights have their own fuses on the kit I installed and I checked said fuse and it wasn't blown. I'm assuming though that there are other fuses for my lights that could be blown. Would they be in my exterior or interior fuse box?

Thanatos

o_O

Did you re-wire things when you put in your amp and sub? Because if there's a short in there, it should just be blowing a fuse. There shouldn't be this off/on thing going on.

Shogun

Thanatos wrote:

o_O

Did you re-wire things when you put in your amp and sub? Because if there's a short in there, it should just be blowing a fuse. There shouldn't be this off/on thing going on.

I don't think anything was re-wired. It was all installed via a kit that I purchased. I did not do the installation myself but I was there to oversee.

supabeast

Your car's manual should include a list of all the fuses and associated systems; although as Thanatos pointed out a blown fuse usually just stops things from working entirely as opposed to creating intermittent problems. :?

Shogun

supabeast wrote:

Your car's manual should include a list of all the fuses and associated systems; although as Thanatos pointed out a blown fuse usually just stops things from working entirely as opposed to creating intermittent problems. :?

Well if its a blown fuse in the engine box for my headlight things are great because then my headlight should work w/ a fuse. If the right headlight system is fried things are no longer great.

Cycophant

Although my experience is with aircraft and not cars, the premise is the same.

Usually an intermittent electrical issue of any type is an intermittent short, a majority of the time from a chafed wire. Considering the number of various systems involved with the issue, I'd say it's a major wire somewhere, but I could be wrong.

Check the leads around the battery and the fuse box and see if anything is wonky. Look around any areas that would have "changed" in the last few weeks since the issues have started, that could have caused the issue to start.

Ruckus

Doublecheck any hard electrical connections (such as the battery poles, alternator links, mainline to electrical controls, etc).

I'd also get the alternator checked, on my first car the DC Regulator on my alt died, causing occaisonal surges that would fry components.

Worst was the when a surge fried the main electrical distribution, where headlights/turn signals/brakelights are all routed power from. I think it cost me a little over 300 cdn to replace all the blown fuses, bulbs, rebuild the alt, and replace the powerbox. I did all the legwork myself (pulling the alt and reinstalling it, replacing the powerbox) so there was very little labor cost.

Also the surge that took out all the lights on my vehicle happened at around 12:30am, when I was on my way home from a friends house in the country, on dirt roads, in deer country. I was lucky it was a full moon night.

Shogun

I called the company I purchased the lights from and they walked me through what I should do to test my components. I pulled out the bad bulb and it looked pretty burnt up compared to the good bulb. I switched the sides and the bad bulb fires but won't light so I guess this was sort of a bad timing incident and the bulb just went out on me. $40 for a new one but such is life. Pretty sure this can be locked now.