Hello friends,

I am curious as to why I am constantly blowing the #1 fuse in my Dart. It is marked as a 3 Amp and controls the lights in my dash and gauges as far as I can tell. However, my inner rear drive lights on the rear bumper also do not work. Maybe this fuse is also related to these lights? My drive, brake and blinkers on the outer rear lights work just not the inner two that face the license plate.

Just curious, can I put a 5 amp fuse in place of this 3 amp fuse without burning anything up?

Also, my gauge is reading a bit over middle position below +40 when in idle and then dropping down a bit when in drive. But then again I do not totally trust my gauges. They are not all working properly in my opinion. My gas gauge for example goes to empty when I fill up and then once I burn off a little gas, it starts reading more accurately but still off. Basically a full tank reads as a 3/4 tank and when on empty I still have 3 gallons of gas left over.

Any advice will be highly appreciated because I am terrible at auto electronics.

Thanks ...

DONT put a bigger fuse in Unless you want the Magic Smoke to appear. You need an Multimeter to trouble shoot this. Do you have one? Do you have a FSM (Factory Service Manual)? You will need both to fix this.
Frank

_________________
Scrapple: Because a mind is a terrible thing to waste.
73 Duster - Race Car
66 Dart Wagon - DD
178" FED
82 D150
All Slant powered

Unfortunately I do not have a mulitmeter. Just curious though, does the #1 fuse control the inner tail lights and cigarette lighter as well?

I dont have my FSM in front of me, but A multimeter is less than $10 now.
I would Not think the Cig lighter would be run off of a 3 amp fuse. Usually 15 or 20 amp maybe 10 Amp on cig lighter.
Frank

_________________
Scrapple: Because a mind is a terrible thing to waste.
73 Duster - Race Car
66 Dart Wagon - DD
178" FED
82 D150
All Slant powered

Tail lights and dash lights are usually on the same fuse, though, I’m not sure about your car in particular. Loss of dash lighting is usually a warning that you don’t have tail lights.

I think your inner tail lights are reverse lights only. You can look and see if there are two bulbs. If they do have tail light bulbs, they should be on the same fuse as the outer lights.

If your outer tail lights work, the dash light problem may be unrelated. Or the tail lights may be working on the wrong element in the bulb through the short that is causing the whole mess. Check if the large or small element in the bulb is lighting for brake and tail lights. The large element should light for brake/turn and the small element for tail lights.

Does your car have a trailer hitch and/or a plug for trailer lights? That is a good place for shorts to start.

Danny

british_steel,

On my '67 Dart, the first fuse is for dash lights only, all orange wire. Gages connect to whatever they are measuring, and have nothing to do with the dash light circuit. You need to get under the dash, chase every inch of orange wire looking for brakes in the insulation including the rear of the gage cluster, non factory splices, and connectors in poor condition. I have looked at a wire diagram for a 74 Dart, look here, And it shows only one orange wire going to the gear selector light, and no other dash lights. I think you will find that there are additional dash lights in your car feed by orange wire.

Somewhere in that snaggle of dash wire, you have a bare orange wire, or an owner spliced wire from that circuit going to ground. In this dash light circuit there are most likely several factory splices where it branches off to feed the lights for the gage cluster, radio, heater controls etc. Those factory splices are soldered, and wrapped with old stile friction tape that need to be inspected, if they are in good shape, leave them be. Chances are good that someone in the past has hacked into this circuit to feed some device now removed from your car or is still feeding a device that draws too much current, and this is where you may find your problem. Don't slap in any more fuses until you correct the problem unless you like dash fires.

Once you locate the short, shrink wrap the new splice / repair, or disconnect the high current draw device. Plastic electrical tape, even 3M #33, is not a long time solution for this application, and I'm not a big fan of auto store cheep crimp connectors, as most folks don't have the proper crimper for the job ending up with a flopping mess that will fail.

Good luck!

_________________
67' Dart GT Convertible; the old Chrysler Corp.
82' LeBaron Convertible; the new Chrysler Corp
07' 300 C AWD; Now by Fiat, the old new Chrysler LLC

wjajr ... thanks a million for explaining this in simple language. You just saved me a lot of trouble shooting. Thanks again! I'll also look into the the outer bulbs as well as mentioned 65Dodge100. Thanks to everyone. I'll let you know what I find out.

I also have a 74 Dart and am having some of the same problems as you.

According to the 74 Operators Manual, the #1 fuse (3 Amp.) controls the Cluster, Radio, Gear Selector, Console A/C or Heater Control, and the Ash Receiver Lights. If the bulb blows, none of these lights will work. This #1 fuse is not related to your "inner rear drive lights on the rear bumper."

You should also know that the #8 fuse (20 Amp.) also controls the Instrument Lights. If it is blown, none of the lights for fuse #1 will light up. #8 also controls the Tail, License, Parking & Side Marker Lights, and the Horn & Horn Relay. Fuse #8 should not be the problem associated with your inner rear lights not working.

Fuse #2 (20 Amp.) controls the Back-up & Reverse Gear Indicator Lights, Heater Blower Motor, and the Turn Signal & Radio. If this fuse is good (and my car's #2 is good), then I don't know why your inner rear lamp/back-up lights don't work. Those back-up lights have two filaments in the bulb #1156. I have actually seen one filament work while the other filament was burned out.

I hope this helps. I am anxious to hear how you resolved your car's back-up lights if and when you fix it.

Tail Lights and Instrument Lights are on fuse #8.


Not correct. Inner tail lights are on fuse #2. They do function as Reverse Gear Indicator Lights, but they also work as brake lights. The outer Tail Lights only work on fuse #8.
I also have this inner tail light/back-up lights not working issue. Maybe both of us can resolve the problem with this forum member's assistance.

Back-up lights have a single element bulb according to the wiring diagram. I can’t think of any reason to need two elements.


Which part isn’t correct? He can not look to see if he has two bulbs? Or do you mean that if tail light bulbs are found there, they will be on a different fuse than the other tail lights?


Back-up lights don’t usually double as brake lights - they are the wrong color. You would need a separate bulb in a separate part of the tail light housing to work as tail or brake lights.

Danny

74DartSport:
All these dash lights (orange circuit) are in parallel if one burns out, the others should still work. In other words each bulb holder is grounded, and fed separately. You have something goofy going on.
.

Doesn't make sense. Orange circuit is fed from headlight switch which is hot all the time getting its power from the large red wire down stream from the amp meter. When the head or parking lights are switched on the terminal that feeds (black wire to #1 fuse) the orange circuit becomes energized, and is controlled via the rheostat. That #8 fuse should have nothing to do with the dash lights according to the online 74 diagram.

_________________
67' Dart GT Convertible; the old Chrysler Corp.
82' LeBaron Convertible; the new Chrysler Corp
07' 300 C AWD; Now by Fiat, the old new Chrysler LLC

Hey friends, I haven't had time off form work yet to attempt to trace down my problem yet but I had another insane thing happen today in traffic. IN fact, I'll need to start a new thread for this one. It was a real Twilight Zone moment.

Perhaps a new harness and all the connectors is in your future. Don't underestimate how the old factory wiring can hang on for years even though its toast. I took a pic of my behind dash harness just because I could not believe how trashed it was considering only minor issues and the occasional magic smoke show over a 15 year span. Everything worked right up till the end.

_________________
74 Dodge Charger 225 factory A/C auto 1920 carb stock exhaust.

Mods;
HEI, MSD B3, Magnecor 8 mm, ZFR5N, .060 rotor, CH410X cap, new 3874814 dist, fuel mod, valves hot .010 & .020, all new hoses, JP chain, brake hoses and fluid.

On the '74 Dart Sport the outboard two-filament bulbs serve as tail lights, brake lights, and turn signals. The inboard single-filament bulbs are only reverse/back-up lights. I watched my son's car this morning as he drove in front of me towards town.

_________________
There's a difference between ignorance and stupidity.
Ignorance is not knowing any better.
Stupidity is knowing, yet doing it anyway.