A rather drastic method of troubleshooting, I'd say!
I would highly not recommend shorting around fuses. They are there to protect
the car from fires in case of a short. A much better method of
troubleshooting a short is to remove the fuse and start measuring the
resistance to ground in the various branches of the circuit. On Spitfires,
there are few fuses so it may be necessary to unplug various wires from the
main wire routing in order to isolate the defect. Also, in circuits that
employ lights, it would be necessary to temporarily remove the bulbs because
they are resistive paths to ground and will interfere with your readings.
Regards,
Joe
Nolan Penney wrote:
>
> I just went through this a few weeks ago on my truck, the actual problem
>itself surprized me, because I wouldn't have expected it. My truck has
>suffered from intermittent rear taillights for months, and blowing fuses. I
>could never find what the darn problem was. Then I started blowing fuses
>rapidly. Did it in the dark on me once, and I had to try using a paperclip to
>jumper the fuse. When that glowed red and caught the fuse box on fire, I
>figured the problem was getting a bit more serious, so I drove in the dark
>without lights that morning. In disgust I finally shoved a heavy jumper in
>there and stood back to watch. Once the smoke started rolling, I knew where
>to look.
>
> Surprise, but my U-Haul trailer harness had failed. The diodes had
>apparently shorted it its magical black box, allowing a heavy current drain.
>Not so heavy as a wire solidly grounded out, but heavy enough to screw around
>with my lights and occassionally blow the fuse. Not untill the damage got bad
>enough to start a fire was I able to locate it.
>
> Now I'm sure you don't have a trailer wiring harness on your Spitfire. BUT,
>you do have the capability for damaged wires, which would do the same thing.
>I would start looking at that end of the lighting circuit that has had
>problems with poor illumination or bulb failures. I think you're going to
>find a wire that is lightly shorted to ground. In your case, that's the
>passenger side wires. You may also have burned up some wires in the harness,
>and have them shorting to each other.
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