OP might be using “cut” in the sense of disconnecting rather than severing.
Considering we’re talking about Random Troll, I think he literally cut the wires, using diagonal side cutters, for example
How do I test for continuity? I had about 6 items on this circuit: dash lights, turn signals… Because there’s an unknown short, and they’re all in parallel, they’re all short. Had I wanted to test individual wires I would have had to find a starting point and run test wires from the beginning to the end; the beginning was under the dash, the end in my tail light or running light: that would have made cutting wires unnecessary, but it seemed like more work. I had the ‘luck’ of finding the right wire on the last 1 in the circuit; then I had to figure out what the *&%$ purpose it served. Fortunately it served no purpose at all.
Snow in San Jose?
Depends on what you are testing. Look on youtube, there are dozens, if not hundreds. of examples, more than can be described here.
I think George used to live somewhere else before, where it did snow . . . Colorado?
There is snow in San Jose, but not the type that falls from the sky, That is why no cars skid from the snow, but people do.
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I know how to test for continuity. The problem is that the ends of the wires I have to test are so far apart and hard to get to for this purpose.
get a roll of 16 or 18 gauge wire and a couple of alligator clips from Lowe’s or Home Depot for $5. Almost any wire size will do because you normally don’t have current in the circuit when testing for continuity.
I already had all this stuff around. It’s less convenient to take apart the wiring at the fuse box and run test wires from contacts there to the +12V contact of a tail light, for example. It’s not hard to cut a wire then repair it, and, in this case, more convenient. Also I had to figure out which wire was which, not having a wiring diagram that gave the correct color codes for wires to the devices, which would have required dismounting them.
From what I understand you had a situation where you could verify power was arriving at the fuse box ok, but it wasn’t getting out after going through the fuses and whatever circuits (usually implemented as bus bars) were inside the fuse box. I had a similar situation one time. I made a best guess that the problem was contained in the fuse box, so I started there. I removed the fuse box from its mountings completely, removed all the connectors going to it, and plopped the fuse box on the work bench. At that point I could test if each in was connected to its out with a dvm. There were several that weren’t making it to their output, so at that point I replaced the fuse box. After whacking it with a hammer so I could see what was inside of course … lol …
If the ins tested ok connected to the outs, but you thought some may be shorted out, in other words some ins were connected to outs inside the fuse box that they shouldn’t be, or if there weren’t too many you could just test them all. Start with in1, test which outs (1-N) it is connected to. Move on to In2. etc etc. On the fuse box I was working on that would have been possible, taken an hour or two maybe.
Note that none of the above requires cutting any wires. I’m not saying cutting wires isn’t the most practical thing to do sometimes. For example I discovered had a broken connector in the wire powering the license plate lamp on my truck. The pro method to solve this is to wire in a new connector. But I just cut out the old connector and soldered a new segment of wire to replace the connector. Shrink the heat shrink tubing with the hair dryer, done.
Let’s say the problem is in the wiring harness. If there’s a broken wire, that’s usually fairly easy to discover b/c something on the car will not be working. You start with the two things you know, where the start of the circuit is, and where the end is. Next you look at the wiring schematic, seeking for a connection point about halfway in between. A wire splice, etc. Then test to that point. If it tests ok from the in, but not from the out, you know the break is between the in and the midway point. So next find a point midway between the in and the prior test point. etc etc. Often when testing for a broken wire in the wiring harness it’s quicker to power up the circuit, then you just test for voltage, rather than resistance. Sometimes I can’t find a splice or connection in the vicinity, only the wire. I don’t want to cut it, so I get out a sharp pin and poke a hole in the insulation. The kind of pin that comes with dress shirts seems to work well for that. That way I can test the wire inside the insulation without cutting the wires. Good idea to mark the hole w/a Sharpie, then dab a little rtv over the hole when you’re done testing.
One annoying problem you’ll sometimes run into is a wire in the wiring harness is shorted out somewhere. Either to ground, or to another wire. There’s a relatively inexpensive short-finding gadget you can buy that will help find where the short is. The way it works conceptually is like this. Run a fixed current in the wire. The current creates a magnetic field, so run your boy scout compass along the wire. The compass will align with the wire’s magnetic field as long as there is current flow. When it doesn’t, you know that’s the point the short is directing the current elsewhere.
There’s a more expensive & more sophisticated version that even tells you how far away the short is. One time I had a problem w/my telephone and the tech came out with that gadget and was able to determine there was a short to ground at exactly 1200 feet away. From that, and knowledge of how the telephone wires were routed, he knew exactly which junction box to look for the shorted wire.
If you don’t have the wiring diagram, it’s usually more time efficient to spend your available time getting one, rather than guessing. Not always, but usually you are better off making the effort to find the wiring diagram.
That was my deal
I even bought one as a present to a friend years ago. This is still a bigger deal than cutting then re-attaching a few wires. As the short wire turned out to be to a device I didn’t even have, only figured out I must have when I cut all the others and figured out what devices they powered, doing it device by device would have failed.
This is hard to make sure you’re doing right with fine wires.
The fuse box was okay.
I had a short.
I spent more time trying to do this than I spent cutting and splicing.