XJ blowing turn signal fuse

RatLabGuy

RatLabGuy

You look like a monkey and smell like one too
Joined
May 18, 2005
Location
Churchville, MD
Nephew got a '96 XJ Sat.
Sun, the turn signals stopped working. Blowing 20A fuse under the hood.
Replaced fuse. worked 5 mins, Pow, blown fuse. :confused:.

Showed continuity across the fuse terminals, even when off - figured relay was bad. Replaced that. worked for a little while - then POP.

Suggestions? To me this sounds like a ground problem. But if I remove the fuse, and touch multimeter between the circuit-side of the fuse and battery ground, no continuity - wouldn't there be if something was shorted/grounding?
Is there something that commonly fails here?
 
There will always be some continuity between the circuit side of the fuse and ground (assuming the switch is closed). The question is how much. You're just going out across the vehicle, through a bulb or coil or something, and back to ground. The battery side of the fuse goes to the battery positive. If you had continuity to ground over there, you'd have a fire.

But how are you getting continuity across a blown fuse?

Does it pop randomly, or only when the indicators are active? If it pops randomly, I'd go for a harness problem... chafing, etc. If it pops only when the indicators are working, I'd check the switch itself (multifunction switch shorting internally, etc) and any trailer wiring out back. Actually, I'd probably check the trailer wiring regardless.

Couple of ideas, anyway...
 
Well... turns out this one was my fault :handed:
We drilled some holed in the vertical base of the back seats to mount eyebolts in... well aparently in the process the wire bundle I didn't realize was there... just enough to short 2 wires together occasionally. Woops. :D Problem solved w/ some electrical tape.
 
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