Tail Light Fuse Keeps popping

[Dominic Salemi]

Can any give me some direction where to start. I repainted the bumper trim cover on the back but all those connection are plugs. I put in a shift lever .  So where do I go from here. Any help would be appreciated. M blinker in the fin still works along with the head light but no others in back. I also disconnected all light in back. Now when I turn my lights on the head light stay on but the fuse pops? I also installed a new light switch

Thanks

Dominic

[Dominic Salemi]

I did not do anything, this just started??

[Dominic Salemi]

Enjoy ...we get 5 days of sun and today was one of them lol. I had to drive the 427 68 convertible corvette today. Ugh  I have LED bulbs in my back (look awesome). I've been tracing every wire off the wiring diagram with no luck. Having an extra wiring harness help a little too.

Its going to a mechanic soon if I can't figure this out. The only problem is that I usually drive in the day time so I don't know when these could of gone out. I put a new shifter lever in...there's no wires in there.

Thanks

[3ft7bqmb7dryo]

When you disconnect the left body feed wire harness, the light goes out....   The short is in the body feed wire harness.  Where did you disconnect the wire harness?  Behind the kick panel?

If that was where you disconnected the wire harness, reconnect and go to the trunk. The wire harness separates just under the left side of the package tray.  Disconnect it there and see if the fuse/bulb lights up.  if not, the short is in the trunk wire harness.  I have see damaged trunk wire harness connectors damaged and cause problems.

[Jason Edge]

Crawl up in the trunk and disconnect body feed at far left corner as seen below. You will have a large connector for the main rear trunk body feed. Disconnect it and see if fuse still blows. That will quickly isolate the problem to the front or rear of car. Unless you have been working under the left door sill plate or inside the lower left front kick panel, the harness from the front connector to rear connector is usually not your problem but either at a switch or at a light.

[Dominic Salemi]

Jason

Found that connection and disconnected it and the short stopped.

Plugged it back in and unplugged the tail fin light connection and short stopped.

It seems both fins short??? If I leave one or the other plugged in there is a short. 3-wire connect on driver side fin and 2-connect on passenger side. What do I check next?

Also on the light switch I still have a short in my interior light rheostat. Any idea's there?

Thanks

[Dominic Salemi]

Jason

Could any of this be caused by the direction switch having a issue?

[Jason Edge]

You indicated that disconnecting the body feed at trunk stops fuse from blowing. That would indicate you have short or something drawing large current in the trunk compartment. If you can no longer get the fuse to blow with trunk harness disconnected I would look in the trunk area.

[Jason Edge]

So, both tail fin disconnected at connector behind tail fin (behind side cardboard wall), but with body feed reconnected at trunk connector andd going through the same light operations at dash as before and now fuse does not blow.  That isolates to the tail fin circuit. This is exactly the type of isolation you need to do to quickly get to the exact part of the circuit causing the fuse to blow. Next, I would unplug both connectors again, and do a continuity test with multi tester for each purple and green connector at each connector to ground. That would isolate to the purple or green wire circuit. From there you need to trace the wires to tail fin and see where it is grounding out. You can also test continuity between green and purple wire but don't think that would make the fuse blow, just lights to be bright all the time, regardless if you have park light, turn signal or turn signal light on.  I'm just responding to the fuse blown issue. Post other issue with complete details in another thread and we can go from there.

[Jason Edge]

Just to add, since you seem to have isolated wiring to the tail fins, I would also remove the tail fin lens (2 screws), remove the bulbs and inspect the 2 contacts.  You basically have the 1 green wire on the trunk harness that feeds both tail fins for lights on/park light operation, then you have the Pink wire on LH side for LH turn and Brake signal, and the Purple wire on the RH side for RH turn and Brake signal. A visual inspection from above looking at the contacts the bulb touches may reveal something, however a quick continuity test should reveal the short.

[Jason Edge]

After rereading 1st post, it points to green wire to tail fin since you indicate fin blinkers work, but when you pull headlights on (which would send 12V to fin green wires for running light) fuse blows. I am not sure what the "bumper trim covers" are that you painted, but perhaps it involved moving /adjusting the tail fin lamp fixtures and wires??