Power Lock Short

Howdy,

Chasing a problem with my power locks where they will blow the fuse instantly and intermittently trip a 30A thermal breaker. Keyless entry still works though not super reliably. I've pulled the door and kick panel off and have isolated the short to the body side of the power lock harness. Power (orange) is in continuity to ground, grey is in continuity to ground, but the other side of the lock circuit (tan) is not. There are no pinched wires in the door boot on the drivers side.

Since the keyless entry still works about all i can think of is a short in the dash harness or something upstream of diode isolation in the lock relay.

Thoughts?

Do you keep change in the ashtray? If so, look in the lighter for a nickel...

I'll check that but no I don't keep anything in the ashtray.

618 Syndicate said:

Do you keep change in the ashtray? If so, look in the lighter for a nickel...

Click to expand...

Ive had this exact issue. Penny in the ash tray lighter socket kept blowing my CTSY fuse. This is on a '91 though..

There's not a lighter in the ashtray on my '98 though I did check and obviously I've not done this before as there was a ciggi butt in the ashtray and some ash in the lighter. I also pulled the passengers door switch and the kick panel to get at the door harness. Short is not in the door and other than the beginnings of some creepy green death in the power wire on the body side, the harness looked fine. Doing continuity on the harness from this side however did show continuity between both sides of the switch (grey and tan) and the power wire and the ground.

Tried following the harness up behind the glove box but it looks like it run on top of the airbag so I'd have to pull the entire dash out to get to it. Anyone know for a fact where the 98 Utility power lock relay and module are so I can strategize how to get to them? Dash is already cracked into 3 pieces and the gauge face isn't really any better so pulling the whole deal to fix that would be a major but not unwarranted exercise.

Also probed the main cigarette lighter (not the power ports that are on the accessory circuit) and it's also a in continuity (diode mode on the multimeter is what I mean by continuity).