Put the alligator clip of the test light on something metal under the hood to ground it.
Tester
still no light. pretty sure itās blown. do you know how to take it off do i have to unscrew all of these?
Disconnect the battery, remove the two nuts that connect the fuse, and replace the fuse.
Call around first. Because the fuse may be hard to find for the vehicle.
Itās a Fiat after all.
Tester
Does the test light turn on when one or the other side of the fuse is probed and the other probe connected to chassis ground? It might not light for both sides, but if it isnāt lighting for at least one side thereās a problem ahead of that fuse.
Any chance you got the battery connected backwards? Positive to negative in other words? Usually thatās nearly impossible to do, b/c of the way the harness is configured. But nearly impossible isnāt the same as absolutely impossible. Any chance you simply forgot to connect the battery connectors to the battery posts? Iām having the sense you may be better off to stop the diy work at this point and tow the car to a shop. It may be something simple, and the risk is that your attempts to fix it yourself may turn it into something not simple to fix.
Years ago I did some brake pedal work on one of my cars, and forgot to disconnect the battery. I left the job uncompleted overnight, and the next day the battery was nearly dead. Turns out the brake pedal work I left uncompleted resulted in the brake lights turning on ā¦
No. Iām watching a ball game now. But 2 weeks ago we had a 16 Dart towed in with a shifter bushing broken. I sent it to the dealer for recall.
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drake_snider
In your first picture it shows you connected the test light ACROSS the main fuse. This is one way to test things but not the usual way. Normally the clip lead of the probe is connected to a known good GROUND point, like the negative post of the battery, the chassis of the car, or engine block, to name a few things. Then the probe tip of the tester is placed on something where you expect to see power at. The light will turn on if there is some difference of potential voltage at that point. When you connect the probe up the way you did in the picture the only time there could be a difference in voltage is if the main fuse was blown. Since the fuse was good you saw no light. This would be the same as placing the probe connections across a piece of wire that has one end tied to the positive battery terminal. Now if you placed the clip lead of the tester to the negative side of the battery and the tip of the probe to the wire tied to the positive battery post then the light will turn on. So much for basic DC testing principals. Lets move on to the real problem at hand.
Since you donāt seem to have any power when you turn on the ignition it would be nice to know if even the brake lights work. This would indicate that the ground side of the battery should be okay at least. You shouldnāt even need to turn the ignition ON to make that test. If the brake lights work okay then you need to check for power getting to the ignition circuit. If no power gets to that point then it will make it seem that the battery is dead but is really fully charged up. The ignition system supplies or controls power to about everything in the car and so it is vital that power gets supplied to that circuit. In the picture you also see some high amperage fuses which are 70 and 60 amp. One or both of those fuses may supply power to the ignition system. Use your probe to check the power on the load side of those fuses, which is shown on the top side of the picture. The light should turn on when checking both of those fuse and the clip lead of the probe is connected to chassis GROUND.
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With the test light connection in the first picture the light would come on by feedback if any significant switch was turned on.
actually not feedback. The test light would be replacing the fuse to carry the current and indicate that the fuse is burned out.