QuestionMy T&C has 115,000+ miles on it and has been mostly reliable.
About a year ago, the fuse that controls the ABS, rear signals, and A/C blowers started burning out. My normal mechanic just upped the amperage (it's supposed to be a 10A) and said there was "no way to find the problem without spending a whole day doing it". That worked for six months or so, then it started blowing them so I went up to a 25A. Those worked well, only blowing once every three or four months. Now, they've started blowing again, and even a 30A gets blown after two minutes or so. The blower doesn't even have to be turned on for the fuse to go.
Possibly unrelated, but the Check Engine light started going on at roughly the same time; the code says something about vapor recovery system; the mechanic says it's not a big deal so I haven't had that fixed.
Any ideas on what's going on here?
AnswerHi Steve,
The fuse is I believe #12 (can you verify that?) and my partial diagrams from the Haynes manual shows that it supplied power to the front A/C blower relay actuation coil (not to the blower itself), as well as to the back up light system. I don't have the circuitry for the ABS so I don't know what its power is used for there. You could begin by pulling out the relay for the blower motor located in the power distribution center. If that stops the fuse from blowing then I would buy a new relay. If not, then I would check the back-up light bulbs and sockets to see if one of the bulbs is shorted, the socket is shorted, or putting the bulbs back in the socket one at a time, doing each of these in turn causes the fuse to blow.
Of course if you have an ohmmeter you could measure the resistance to ground of that contact for the #12 fuse socket that is not carrying the 12V when the ignition switch is in run position, e.g. looking at the "cold" contact in the socket, the combined draw down resistance that the fuse is looking at, and with the fuse removed you should find it is very near to 0 ohms (a short) and then go thru the steps in the previous paragraph until you do something that causes the resistance to rise up to a few ohms or more (doing this also with the ignition set in run position and the trans set in reverse). What ever causes the resistance to rise is the problem item. Doing it this way will obviate the need to keep blowing fuses to find the problem. It might nonetheless be in the ABS control unit which I can research if you don't find it in the blower relay or reverse lamp circuits. Let me know what you find out.
Roland
