2002 keeps blowing ignition fuses because of new amp!?

[DeviousVert]

Well, I wired in a 400 watt amp, and all the tests before giving the amp a full blown test worked just fine. Well, I measured all the wires, cut everything to length and hooked it all up. I went to turn the key and there was nothing. No power to anything. Looked under the hood and a 30 amp ignition fuse was blown. Well, drove the other car to the parts store, got another one, put it in, and the truck started up just fine, but before firing it up, I disconnected the amp wiring. Then I hooked the hot wire up along with the ground and checked for power using a test light and there was power, I left the remote disconnected. Turned the key and the truck started. Hooked the remote up to a fuse that is ignition-on-hot only. Went to start the truck and it was dead again, checked under the hood and a 50 amp ignition fuse was blown. What in the world would cause a remote wire to blow fuses that in most cases should have melted that little wire long before a 30 or 50 amp fuse should have blown????

 

[Blee1099]

Well, I wired in a 400 watt amp, and all the tests before giving the amp a full blown test worked just fine. Well, I measured all the wires, cut everything to length and hooked it all up. I went to turn the key and there was nothing. No power to anything. Looked under the hood and a 30 amp ignition fuse was blown. Well, drove the other car to the parts store, got another one, put it in, and the truck started up just fine, but before firing it up, I disconnected the amp wiring. Then I hooked the hot wire up along with the ground and checked for power using a test light and there was power, I left the remote disconnected. Turned the key and the truck started. Hooked the remote up to a fuse that is ignition-on-hot only. Went to start the truck and it was dead again, checked under the hood and a 50 amp ignition fuse was blown. What in the world would cause a remote wire to blow fuses that in most cases should have melted that little wire long before a 30 or 50 amp fuse should have blown????

How is the amp and stuff wired? Is it wired to the battery or off another hot wire? If its off another hot wire, more than likely it can't handle the amount of amps running thru it. More than likely something isn't wired correctly. If it was professionally installed, take it back to them.

 

[CDW6212R]

The turn on wiring should be powered by any normal ignition circuits. Any heavy powered devices should never be powered by the normal factory circuits.

You must run separate power wiring to items like big amplifiers. They take too much power to add to factory circuits. That's why the instructions mention separate fuses, and feed wires. There should also be better grounding wires added, to solid ground, not to existing ground wires. Good luck,

 

[DeviousVert]

Okay, it's wired like this. 4 gauge hot wire running directly from the battery to the amp with an inline fuse installed. Remote is running from a blade fuse that is plugged into the fuse block under the drivers side. I checked for power by keeping the test light on a fuse and then I would turn the key to accessory power, if the fuse went hot, then that was the fuse I used to run the remote from. The ground is run to a seat bracket that bolts directly to the body of the truck. Pretty straightforward installation, and I did it myself. This is the umpteenth stereo I have installed and I have never seen anything like this. First I started thinking bad ground, but I just can't see how that would put extra stress on the ignition circuits.

 

[CDW6212R]

It sounds okay. I wonder about the remote turn on circuit. Do you have any of the instructions? That type of circuit is usually an insignificant amount of power.

Have you tested it with everything wired, except the turn on wire? Do that, confirm that the vehicle operates properly. Then manually jump power to the turn on wire, using any normal hot or ignition power wire. Don't use any engine operating circuits, for audio stuff use the radio power wiring. That should not interfere with the engine.

If that proper wiring still gives problems, then I would suspect an unrelated problem. That would just mean that your changes are bringing out some other pre-existing problem. Good luck,

 

[JAFO2RHh]

Make sure the remote turn on wire didn't get pinched and is grounding out somewhere.

 

[DeviousVert]

That was it! The remote somehow got pinched to the frame where one of the door pads was covering it. It was grounding right to the frame. Thanks for all the help guys. We ran a new remote wire and everything is working fine now. Thanks again.