Monday was a holiday for me so I spent some time installing my radio in the Blazer. There really isn't and obvious place for radios in the second generation blazer, so after an hour I decide on the ash tray. So that was real entertaining as it's section is the first installed in the dash board, so every thing else needs to be unbolted. So after some dremel work to get the angle right I start putting the dash back together and running the power wire. I was going to use the existing cigarate lighter wire, but this looked really thin. So I ran some 12 ga. back to the fuse panel.

The interior fuse panel is retained by a single screw at the bottom, and two clips at the top. Where you can get into trouble is the screws used to put the dash together are the sheet metal type and make perfect little saws and cause a phenomenon known as wire chafing. This is a well documented problem with early F-16 planes.

Over time the screw will skin the wire insulation if a wireing harness is in contact with it. This can cause the car to do anything from acting 'strange' to randomly blowing fuses or causing an electrical fire. Extra points are given if the screw is also associated with chassis ground.

A problem well documented with mid 80's Fords is the cruise control wires chafing to ground and jamming the acelerator full throttle. At one of my previous jobs we had a F-150 that the heater wouldn't come on until you made a left turn, and ocassionally the car wouldn't start until the dash board was kicked in the right spot.

With my Blazer I noticed that a cable was almost to the critical point. The screw it was resting on had worn through the electrical tape and was starting on the insulation. After some research I determined that this was coming from the cruise controls on the blinker assembly.

You should retape the cable or any chafes with a quality tape such as Scotch 33+ and route the wire to minimize the possibility of chafing again. Even better solutions are to get some plastic tie down clamps, and run the cable through that, but the stock double sided tape sucks, so I usually put a few drops of super glue on the pad before sticking it down.

Be sure that the air bag circuit is in a safe mode before you go searching. You should avoid playing with the yellow wires at all. If any yellow wireing is chafed you should immediately have it serviced by a dealer.

So next time you have an urge to pull apart your dash, take a look in all the little nooks and cranys for your wiring and make sure the cabling is clear. Inspect the wires, if something is wraped in electrical tape, and you see colored wire in a spot you know where the problem is.

 

Great Information, Thank's..........................