67Dart273
Well-Known Member
Spent the day finding a dead short in the neighbor's heater with a beater. The 67 suffered some damage in this winter's windstorm, and he "let me know" that this would "go a long way" towards fixin THAT.
So I dove in. Biggest challenge is getting reliable information, and in fact I ordered a service manual off th' bay, then went out this afternoon and found the problem!!
The "*****" I have is the DISMAL knowledge, stock, and availability of "whut ya need" in today's "parts" stores. I went to all of them in the immediate "group"......O'Really?, Not -oh-zone, and No Auto Parts Available. What I was looking for is some sort of test adapter that would go into the small AT series fuse panel, that would allow testing and protecting the circuit. We already KNEW which fuse was blowing!!
So I was looking for something functionally like this:
And of course did not find it. One "parts" guy told me "there's no such thing." I told him I'd already found at least three types online
So I DID find a device called an "add a circuit." This is a little doo dad which you remove the original fuse, and plug "this thing" in. You put two fuses in the device.....one which came out of the original panel, and continues the original circuit. A second fuse handles the "add a circuit"......the pigtail wire..........I bought two. By the way, NAPA was exactly TWICE the price of O'Really? and Noto zone
So this is a pair of the 'add a circuit' devices
Now what you do is, you put fuses in the things and CONNECT THE TWO TOGETHER....When you plug that combo into the fuse panel, the two red wires end up one on each end of the original fuse terminals, with a fuse in series with each red pigtail
With the device plugged in, you can connect something like this which puts the lamp in SERIES with the circuit, REPLACING the fuse. This allows you to energize the circuit and troubleshoot with no danger of a short damaging anything, plus when you find the short and remove it........the lamp goes out, showing you that you found it
I found the short alright.......the driver's seat was bolted down on top of the harness, and it turns out there had been a PREVIOUS repair
Only the wire nut is my work...........a temporary repair to test and make sure it all works before repairing.
The reason the seats, carpet, and console, and trunk carpet is all torn up is that the car had an "over winter" leak, and, hell, there was 3/8" standing water in the back floor pan, and all the floor pan and carpet was wet, including the trunk. So I just tore it all out to dry
Fun
More fun
So I dove in. Biggest challenge is getting reliable information, and in fact I ordered a service manual off th' bay, then went out this afternoon and found the problem!!
The "*****" I have is the DISMAL knowledge, stock, and availability of "whut ya need" in today's "parts" stores. I went to all of them in the immediate "group"......O'Really?, Not -oh-zone, and No Auto Parts Available. What I was looking for is some sort of test adapter that would go into the small AT series fuse panel, that would allow testing and protecting the circuit. We already KNEW which fuse was blowing!!
So I was looking for something functionally like this:
And of course did not find it. One "parts" guy told me "there's no such thing." I told him I'd already found at least three types online
So I DID find a device called an "add a circuit." This is a little doo dad which you remove the original fuse, and plug "this thing" in. You put two fuses in the device.....one which came out of the original panel, and continues the original circuit. A second fuse handles the "add a circuit"......the pigtail wire..........I bought two. By the way, NAPA was exactly TWICE the price of O'Really? and Noto zone
So this is a pair of the 'add a circuit' devices
Now what you do is, you put fuses in the things and CONNECT THE TWO TOGETHER....When you plug that combo into the fuse panel, the two red wires end up one on each end of the original fuse terminals, with a fuse in series with each red pigtail
With the device plugged in, you can connect something like this which puts the lamp in SERIES with the circuit, REPLACING the fuse. This allows you to energize the circuit and troubleshoot with no danger of a short damaging anything, plus when you find the short and remove it........the lamp goes out, showing you that you found it
I found the short alright.......the driver's seat was bolted down on top of the harness, and it turns out there had been a PREVIOUS repair
Only the wire nut is my work...........a temporary repair to test and make sure it all works before repairing.
The reason the seats, carpet, and console, and trunk carpet is all torn up is that the car had an "over winter" leak, and, hell, there was 3/8" standing water in the back floor pan, and all the floor pan and carpet was wet, including the trunk. So I just tore it all out to dry
Fun
More fun
Last edited:
