Contour Enthusiasts Group Archives Forums General Troubleshooting Fuse keeps blowing

We have a 98 Contour SVT and fuse 34 keeps blowing. I took a resistance reading from the "battery" side of the fuse terminal and read 2-3 ohms. I disconnected every single item from the main fuse box and still read 2-3 ohms. Is my meter bad? I don't have a know good source to test it against outside the car. Could it be the fuse block?

disconnect the battery and get a small wire brush.. then take the brush and scrape off any corrosion or such on every place along the contacts of that wire... that might be where the resistance is coming from and blowing the fuse..

If you have been trying to measure resistance from the BATTERY side of the fuse (removed) to ground, you probably need a new meter by now. That circuit is still LIVE and will cook the input stage of an ohmmeter unless you are lucky.

You should be measuring from the NON-BATTERY fuse terminal (load side) to ground to try to isolate the reason why the fuse keeps blowing.

Remember, current flowing THROUGH the fuse is what is blowing it. You have been measuring on the wrong side of it. Make certain you take a voltage reading first to ensure you have NO voltage in the circuit before setting your meter to the OHMS function.

Steve "Electronics Tech for over 25 Years" W

Also remember you can replace the fuse with a test light. If the test light is glowing brightly, you still have a short.

I did have the battery disconnected whenever I was measuring the resistance. I was trying to eliminate the "bus bar" circuit being shorted to ground.

Does anyone know what the resistance should be on the "load" side of the circuit. What I don't know is, what value I am suppose to be looking for.

A resistance of less than 1.92 ohms will flow greater than 7.5 A if the supply bus is 14.4 Vdc.

Fuse 34 supplies most of the interior illumination and a few other circuit modules. You will really need the EVTM to identify all the possibilities. Also, the production date of your 98 needs to be established to see which set of schematics are to be used as there was a production change in 03/98.

You could not have picked a worse circuit to have a short circuit in....this one goes everywhere.

Steve