Paper Circuit Burned

Stufine · Jan 3, 2017

hello

I have a 71 302 mustang. The lights on the instrument cluster stopped working. I removed the cluster and on the paper circuit one of the lines was burnt the whole way across the circuit.

I replaced the paper circuit board and the same thing happened again. Same circuit and everything.

I assume there is a short in the wiring that goes to the circuit. How can I find which wire is burning the circuit? Should I replace all of the wires going to the paper circuit?

Thanks

Stufine

tos · Jan 4, 2017

Can you tell where that circuit goes to on the panel? What it operates?
I would start there and then we can find which wires supply power to that particular circuit.
Check the voltage coming out of your clusters voltage regulator also and make sure its wired correctly. I believe the regulator only supplies power for the gauges though but I'd check it just the same. Other than that you could just do a quick look behind the dash for shorts, chewed up wires from varments, wires spliced by some previous owner etc. Are you blowing any fuses?

Stufine · Jan 4, 2017

It looks like 2 wires go into the connector. One goes to the head light switch and I couldn't follow the other. It got too dark and my flashlight needs a charge.
No fuses are blown and the wires look fine as far as I could trace them.
I will keep looking and let you know.

tos · Jan 5, 2017

Did the circuit fry when you turned on the headlights or immediately when you hooked it up?
Do you get power to those wires without the headlight switch turned on?
Check your wiring at the headlight swtch too for shorts or added wires
Ok if im looking at the right wiring then it looks like the other goes to the fuse box and then from there goes the console clock. Should be green or lite green with maybe a yellow stripe?
if that's the one then I'd first look for a short, then if any one has spliced into it to wire something else up I.E. a radio or amp etc.
Then look for bad or loose ground wires on anything in that area. If something in that system that draws a lot of amps doesn't get a good ground it can sometimes find other ground sources. Or lets say someone wired something else in that system that draws more amps than that system was designed for and threw in a bigger fuse to handle it then it could easily fry that circuit.
This is the least likely possibility but worth investigating if you don't see anything more obvious.

Stufine · Jan 5, 2017

tos said:
Did the circuit fry when you turned on the headlights or immediately when you hooked it up?
Do you get power to those wires without the headlight switch turned on?
Check your wiring at the headlight swtch too for shorts or added wires
Ok if im looking at the right wiring then it looks like the other goes to the fuse box and then from there goes the console clock. Should be green or lite green with maybe a yellow stripe?
if that's the one then I'd first look for a short, then if any one has spliced into it to wire something else up I.E. a radio or amp etc.
Then look for bad or loose ground wires on anything in that area. If something in that system that draws a lot of amps doesn't get a good ground it can sometimes find other ground sources. Or lets say someone wired something else in that system that draws more amps than that system was designed for and threw in a bigger fuse to handle it then it could easily fry that circuit.
This is the least likely possibility but worth investigating if you don't see anything more obvious.

It fried as soon as I turned the ignition on. Smoke and everything. I am going to check tonight for all of those things.

Paper Circuit Burned

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