30A Ignition fuse blown

Hey guys,

I was driving my car today, and it randomly just died in the middle of the road. I open the hood and find the 30A ignition fuse blown. I try to replace it, but it just blows again. After it ate 3 fuses I gave up.

This all started right after I drove through extremely heavy rain. Since my car was rebuilt from a collision, I have electrical tape used as insulation on a 1 inch section of the wiring harness that runs underneath the radiator. I suspect that water has gotten in there and is shorting the ignition to ground. Anyone else have any suggestions on where else this problem could be coming from?

There are like 30 different circuits that run off the ignition circuit, so this could really turn into a huge headache if the problem isn't something obvious. It's very discouraging because this is a complicated circuit :orangecry: Any ideas?

I'm freaking out and getting really desperate here. I traced the 30A fuse back to the ignition switch. The Haynes repair manual says there are only two wires coming out of the switch; BLK/WHT and BLK/YEL. However, I have four wires coming out of it. The other two are blue. Does anyone know what these go to?

Furthermore, does anyone have the wiring diagram for the Galant? The one in the back of the Haynes manual is pretty poor and doesn't describe a lot of things.

For instance, I see "Junction block 1", "Charge indicator", "Combination Meter", etc. And I have no idea where these junction blocks are. Please help if you can! :022:

You should at least heat shrink those connections or at the very least liquid electrical tape does a good job of sealing and protecting. When I had that fuse blow it took a while to pinpoint because it was intermittent but I traced it to the coil.

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Originally Posted by w/oarctic7g

You should at least heat shrink those connections or at the very least liquid electrical tape does a good job of sealing and protecting. When I had that fuse blow it took a while to pinpoint because it was intermittent but I traced it to the coil.

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After doing more research, having a few more beers, and poking around another few hours, I pinned the problem down to the BLACK/WHITE wire going from the ignition switch. This wire goes under the dashboard, so tomorrow the entire dash is being removed. I believe I caused this problem, as 3 years ago I repaired a different circuit under the dashboard, but I didn't put the entire wiring harness back together with cable ties, and I didn't put the black plastic sheath back on it either. So 3 years later, one of those wires' insulation scraped off against the ground.

I'm going to fix it tomorrow. I just really hope this didn't fry my ECU. With this BLACK/WHITE wire disconnected from the ignition switch, the engine turns over, but doesn't fire. I also get "NO LINK" on my OBDII scan tool. Crossing my fingers...

Update: She's fixed!!! Car's still in a million pieces, but it now starts and drives :icon_cool: Only took 18 hours of work, removing the entire dashboard, and cutting open the wiring harness in 5 different places!

It ended up being simply just a 2-wire plug going into the distributor :icon_eek: . It was grounding out, causing all sorts of havoc. The problem is, the Hayne's repair manual schematic is dead wrong on where this circuit goes. It took me many, many hours to find out where the shorting wire was going, because I had to do it without schematic help. To save any potential person many hours of time and money, I shall upload pictures of my progress along with the correct version of the schematic, just in case any other person faces the same hell that I've gone through in the past day and a half. Pictures will come tomorrow ;)

The 2 wire plug goes directly to the coil. The coil is probably going to eventually fail completely. Bypass that trouble maker.

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Originally Posted by w/oarctic7g

The 2 wire plug goes directly to the coil. The coil is probably going to eventually fail completely. Bypass that trouble maker.

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Is the coil energized when the key is in the "ON" position? I was blowing fuses with the engine off and the key at "ON". And how exactly do I bypass it? Replace it? Thanks for your help BTW

I showed some info on it a while back here- https://www.thegalantcenter.org/showthread.php?t=46861 . I can give a full tut. with pics if needed but there doesn't appear to be much interest. You can just leave the stock coil in place modify the cap adding another terminal for the coil, leave 2 wire connector connected, t into the smaller wire for - side of coil and cut the larger wire and attach + side of coil to it. I have had two distributor failures so it's the best solution in my opinion. The crank&cam sensors seem to last forever, it's just the coil that fails. You can use just about any aftermarket coil even adding an msd box will still be less $, more complete combustion, and more reliable than a new distributor.

that happened to me and it was a wire from the speed sensor grounding out.

W/OArtic 7G and Mygalantwasfree,
Please post pictures and/or tutorials of your experiences and fixes with these issues. Wiring issues suck up so much time it isn't even funny. I generally want to beat my car with a hammer out of fraustration when I have to chase wiring issues. Generally where a couple of folks have had the same kinds of problems others will soon follow. The more information out there how to fix/avoid these kinds of issues, the longer we'll be able to keep our cars out there. IMHO these cars have aged well other than the auto trans. Considering the 7g started in 1994 (I bought my 94ES in 1993) and now 17 years later they still look good on the road, handle better than many, can be upgraded for amazing HP and still get decent gas milage, the 7g is a keeper.

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Originally Posted by eksz

W/OArtic 7G and Mygalantwasfree,
Please post pictures and/or tutorials of your experiences and fixes with these issues. Wiring issues suck up so much time it isn't even funny. I generally want to beat my car with a hammer out of fraustration when I have to chase wiring issues. Generally where a couple of folks have had the same kinds of problems others will soon follow. The more information out there how to fix/avoid these kinds of issues, the longer we'll be able to keep our cars out there. IMHO these cars have aged well other than the auto trans. Considering the 7g started in 1994 (I bought my 94ES in 1993) and now 17 years later they still look good on the road, handle better than many, can be upgraded for amazing HP and still get decent gas milage, the 7g is a keeper.

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I would really love to do so, but I am afraid that my tutorials won't be of much help. I seem to be having a permanent new phantom under my hood, and I don't think it will ever really go away. The problem with tutorials is that they assume a common cause of failure. With wiring, there are like 20,000 points of failure, which all must be examined.

After not replacing my ignition coil, which seems to have somehow repaired itself and it no longer shorts, I now have to remove the under-the-hood fuse box cover to start the engine. Putting the fuse box cover on the fuse box while the engine is running will cause the engine to die. Also, now my stereo cuts out when I go over big bumps. That never happened before, and all the grounds are as tight as can be.

Bottom line is: Wiring problems are like untreatable malignant cancer. Ideally, there should be one circuit shorting somewhere, causing all of your problems. In the real world, one short in one circuit snowballs into 15 faulty circuits, for absolutely no apparent reason.

Unfortunately I believe that my car is nearing the end. :frown: My electrical problems seem to be getting worse and worse, despite my best efforts to repair them. I have spent 30 fruitless hours in total in the last week repairing and tracing short circuits. It is sad to say, and I'm really not trying to complain or seem like a flamer, but I believe the next place for my car to go is the crusher at the junk yard :'( She served me well, but she's dying at only 145K. Too young for a jap car.

Your fraustration is understandable. Unfortunately 7gs parts other than 5 spd swap parts are not really in demand. Maybe you'll find someone willing to buy it from you for at least what the junkyards are paying. Try listing it here on TGC.

I bought a 95 S that had been hit hard in the rear just so I could pull the 5 spd. The only parts anyone wanted off it was the 5 spd which was already spoken for. I gave $200 for her and once I was done stripping it (kept the motor, wiring harness, wheels, axles) I still got $60 from the junk yard. If the whole car had gone to the junk yard I suspect they'd have given me about $120 for it. Funny thing is even though the car was in rough shape I really hated to just see her crushed. I get too attached to my cars which may explain why I own four 7gs. If I lived closer to you I'd be looking at picking up yours once you decided enough was enough.

Fuse Link 3, 30 Amp, right under hood Fuse block feeds Ignition Switch ON (BL/BK pin 4), ACC-ON (BL/WT pin 6), ON-START (BK/WT pin 2) and START (BK/RD or BK/YL pin 5)
Fuse Link 3, 30 Amp, right under hood Fuse block RED wire goes to Ignition Switch pin 1
Fuse Link 3, 30 Amp, right under hood Fuse block RED wire also feeds Dedicated fuse 9, 10 Amp uhFb before going to Ignition Switch pin 1
Fuse Link 3 ... feeds 9 under dash and under hood fuses, Ignition coil, ECM, SRS, PNP Sw, Theft Alarm, a lot of relay coils, ... it is the worst electrical configuration i had seen, what a joke!
Can't upload diagram images, no tools here. INFO from Mitchell OnDemand