I tried to change the door lights on my 1999 Honda Accord EX V6. I took off the plastic cover on one of the driver’s side of the door, dome on the front, dome on the back, and one of the driver’s visor’s cover. However, I only removed the bulb(looks like a small fuse), from the visor, and the bulb from the door on the driver’s side.
I went to autozone, they gave me a set of LED lights for the door, and I tried to install one, but one of the clips that keeps the bulb in place was squeezed too tight so I could not insert the new bulb in.
When I placed the bulb against the clips, it would light up, but it would not stay in place on account of the tight clip not allowing me to insert it all the way, so I prodded the clip open a little bit with a small screwdriver, but when I did so, the screwdriver touched the left and right clips at the same time and I saw a spark. Now, NONE of the interior lights work(except for the dashboard), even when I use the old/non-LED bulb.
This is my first time trying to make modifications to my car, so I thought I would start with something easy, but look what happened. I am an amateur when it comes to cars, but if I had to guess, I think I blew some sort of fuse when I connected the screwdriver to the two clips. How to I fix this issue, so all my interior lights work again.
Thank you guys in advance.
It’s probably under the dashboard, left of the steering wheel. Your owners manual should show where, and which fuses are for which circuits.
No worries, blowing a fuse once in a while is a pretty common thing for a diyer. You think you got problems? One time I blew a portion of a circuit board accidentally shorting it out while probing with an o’scope, and it turned out to be the only one that worked at the time , so all development came to a halt. Soon after the CEO and VP of the company came into my office screaming and shouting at me … lol … 45 minutes later and a 25 cent part and it was working again. But something like that indeed can cause some drama in between. Anyone who’s employed working on electronics stuff has stories like this. Not a big deal.
So remain calm and look in your owner’s manual for the fuse box location and how to check and change them. Often it is near the driver’s knee area. When you remove the cover you’ll see an array of fuses, and usually there’s a description of which fuse is for what circuit, sometimes on the back of the cover you just removed. Often there are some spare fuses there too.
To minimize the chance of that happening again, try to avoid working on a fixture that’s powered up. You can remove power to all circuits by disconnecting the battery negative, or what I’d do for that situation is make sure the door is closed when working on interior lights, as the door being open is what causes them to be powered up. Another method if you must keep the door open is to figure out a way to depress the door switch while you work. I should mention at this point that I recently replaced my truck’s license plate bulb. The new bulb wouldn’t go in due to corrosion of the socket, and I also noticed a wire had come loose for the ground. It took me nearly 3 hours before I was done. My dremmel tool saved the day on that one.