Rear Wiper And Mirrors Dead

[stewartmotorsport]

So, suddenly, the rear wiper and the mirrors go dead.

A quick check with the test light reveals a blown fuse. Replace, and popped again. And again.

Any ideas what is shorting?

[Infinitiguy19]

Thats the thing with electrical problems, they are a PAIN. But take a gander at ther service manual and trace the harness too see whats going on. I doubt those items are connected in any other way other than the fuse. My bet is that a sharp piece of metal cut into the harness.

http://www.nicoclub.com/FSM/300zx/1994/el.pdf

[Ace 2.0]

when i first got my z the mirrors and rear wiper did not work at all.the fuses were good and my interior light would act flakey when the driver side door was opened.
i did some yoga and inspected the wiring under the dash and found a cut green wire.
i spliced it back together and my little overhead fan started working,so did my wiper and mirrors and it took care of the lights.
so it might be a grounding issue.

[aroche25]

The same thing happened to me when I first got the car. The fuse would just blow, so I went with a 25amp (5amp above factory) and I haven't had a single problem since. Sounds like its wiring or something annoying. Well good luck.

[Ace2cool]

That's not a good plan. The fuse is designed to burn before the wire burns. You may have an electrical fire on your hands if you're not careful.

[aroche25]

That's not a good plan. The fuse is designed to burn before the wire burns. You may have an electrical fire on your hands if you're not careful.

Yep I thought about that too, but this is the explanation form the guy who changed it while rewiring my dash, fuse rating is so close to factory that it wont hurt 20amp ~ 25amp, epically since you don't smoke or rarely charge anything there. Hope my car audio guy knew what he was doing. But yeah odd is that the cig lighter fuse controls everything near it.

[Ace2cool]

Yeah, I still would look to see what went wrong to cause the fuse to blow. There's a drain somewhere. I work with aviation electronics, and I've seen components literally burst into flames because the circuit breaker wiring was shorted.

[aroche25]

Yeah, I still would look to see what went wrong to cause the fuse to blow. There's a drain somewhere. I work with aviation electronics, and I've seen components literally burst into flames because the circuit breaker wiring was shorted.

Ohh boy, okay I will look into this then.

[stewartmotorsport]

So Get this. The PO was a major league F Up as far as I can tell. I spent all morning trying to isolate this short...and I finally found it.

The reservoir bottle in the rear was missing one of the electrical connectors that drives the pimp for the rear washer. Those wires had been cut, and they were shorting on the metal quarter panel.

With no connector, I soldered them to the pump (I installed a couple of release tabs inline though) ran some shrink tube, fired it up, everything works.

I swear if I ever find this guy I'm gonna cut out his brain. It's apparent he's got no use for it.

[Ace2cool]

Wow. Glad you got it sorted, cause that is big grounds for a fire. Good work on tracking it down.