tpt92eg

I recently changed my EG foglights to EK/EJ foglights on my 92 VX. They worked fine for a week then it rained and the relay got wet and fried! I replaced the relay with a new one and now the 30amp inline fuse keeps blowin everytime I start the car and turn them on. Sumtimes I dont have to start the car it will just blow after a couple of min. while Im double checkin everything and puttin stuff back 2gether. I have checked all the wiring no bare wire or arcin anywhere. checked my ground and moved my ground everything Ive checked and rechecked looks good and is the way its supposed to be!!! Can any1 shed any light on the subject Im so confused. And no I have to old lights anymore! What would happen if I just did away with inline fuse? Probley fry the new relay?!

basketthis69

first of all, don't get rid of the fuse. fuses are you savior when it comes to car electronics, and it may fry the relay, but it may also start the wires on fire.

are you using the right ampere fuse?

tpt92eg

The foglights came with a 40amp relay and a 30amp fuse in the inline fuse and of course no directions so I guessin its right I tried a 40amp fuse once and it did them same thing its doin now I figure its the right thing to do by leaving the 30amp fuse in there.

basketthis69

foglight systems are not complicated at all and there is actually only a couple of things it could be. most common ones are:
1. bad relay, not the right relay
2. grounding out somewhere
3. trigger/switch wire is wired improperly
4. switch is just plain wired wrong (which shouldn't blow the fuse, just the lights won't turn on)

you need to check and recheck everything. it could be grounding out where the wires go through the firewall or something even stupider than that...

hope this helps

tpt92eg

I know what ur sayin I really do I have checked everything atleast 5x i swear as for the switch: red wire is connected to the wirin harness under the hood, black wire is grounded under the dash with a couple factory grounds, the 2 yellow wires are connected to the option D plug in the fuse box. as for the relays like I said they are the same relays its just one of them is a 30amp and other is a 40amp

Fabrik8

A 30 amp fuse is fine, that's 360 watts of lighting power at 12V. It's only 30A to be able to handle the inrush current while the bulb heats up, which is considerably higher than the normal operating current. Anyway, the relay is only passing current through itself, so if the fuse is blowing the current is going somewhere else. Look carefully at your foglights, there is something going on there, and I'm guessing its got something to do with the rain.

Moving the ground won't do anything; if you don't have a good ground then the lights won't be able to draw the amount of current they need for full brightness, so you'll be drawing less current with a bad ground than more current. The bulb sets the max current draw, and it can't be more than that, but it can be less if you're limiting it somehow (with a bad ground or whatever).

If you have a minor short though, it might not take much more than the normal bulb current to make the fuse blow, so I'd look at that first. What I would do is remove the bulbs from the lights, then put a multimeter inline with the power wire to see if there is still current draw when the switch is turned on. If there is, start trying to track down where a problem might be coming from. I'm suspecting there is some parasitic short to ground. If the fuse is blowing before the switch is turned on, you have bigger problems than you think because power is flowing without the relay being turned on.
Also, remove the relay from the relay socket and try across the socket terminals; that will tell you a lot also. Even if the relay is bad, there can't be enough power going into the lights to blow the fuse unless something else is wrong or some current is finding a path to the ground for the relay coil.


Its possible you have some water in the connector that attaches to the foglight, or inside the bulb base itself.
Oh, also make sure that you have the light wired correctly; the ground side of the bulb might be connected to some part of the foglight housing or something like that, so if its wired backward then you might be unintentionally grounding out the power side of the bulb. That shouldn't be a problem, and the bulb socket should be totally isolated from the housing, but its possible I suppose.

tpt92eg

Ill take the foglights apart 2moro (2day) but when I looked at the 2day when I had everything apart I didnt see anything out of the way but I didnt take the lights apart. The fuse only blows when there is power to them. As long as I leave the lights off the fuse is fine its only when I cut them on or have the car started and cut them does the fuse blow faster. Like I said ill take the fogs apart 2moro.

Fabrik8

Okay, so you've got a short downstream from the relay, which is all you can tell so far. When the relay is turned on, something is shorting power, whether its the foglights or something else is up in the air at the moment obviously. That's why you should remove the bulbs and test current draw with a multimeter. With no bulb, the only current draw will be caused by the short, if that makes sense. Good luck, this should be easy to track down but you'll have to think about what you're seeing while you're troubleshooting.

tpt92eg

so unplug the fogs, check voltage with the meter(meanin shove the ends of the meter in the plug), check it on and off? what kind of readin should I be lookin 4??? never used a meter before.

Fabrik8

Forget I said that. If you aren't comfortable with using a multimeter, this could be an expensive lesson to start with. Find a friend to help, and let them teach you as they go.

What I was saying was to measure current (not voltage) with the meter, which means putting the meter inline with the power wire so the current flows through the meter and can then be measured. There is an amperage setting on many/most meters for this. You remove the bulbs because you're only trying to find the current that is not going through the bulbs. Once you remove the bulbs, make sure the fuse still doesn't blow, because if it does the current will be high enough that you might damage the multimeter or at least blow the (often hard to find a replacement for) internal fuse.

Seriously though, get some help from someone who has some meter experience first before trying this stuff.