lost side lights, tail lights and clock lights (update)

[POPEYE]

Your gonna need to trace ALL the wires from these spotlights back to their sources to be sure theres nowt shorting out, if wires are "spliced" together cut the spottie wires as close as possible and wrap insulating tape over the cut wire, are you sure theres no relay wired in the spotlight wiring? small black cube mayby bolted to the panels somewhere, four wired connected to it, useually two thick and two thin? sounds like a bodge job by whoever wired em up so no telling what they did,
traceing wiring is a right pain, for a start i'd just insulate what you have cut already, judgeing by what your saying theres no reason to assume they used red for positive and black fro ground, could be the other way round so insulate all of it, (wrap insulating tape over the ends)

like i said over on matts site, spots are normally wired via the high beam as i believe its illeagle to use em on the road, so wired to high beam via an on/off switch and most definatly a relay should be used to power the lights, otherwise you run the risk of burning your loom wires

[muddle]

theres no relay anywhere, just a red wire coming out from each head light and there was a small black one coming from the near side head light that was bolted to the slam panel next to the overflow tank, so this must be the earth, so the reds should be live.

when the misses returns with the surf ill take the batteries out and check to see where the red wires are connected and probably remove them completely.

hate bodges!!!!! why do people bother doing it?

[muddle]

right, my side lights work, but only for about 5 to 10 mins, then the fuse blows.

i took the red wires out completely, on the nearside it was wires to the main beam headlight and on the offside it was wired up to the fog light, the wires had the sheath removed and the red wires that go to the spots were just wrapped around them and taped up.

i was all chuffed they worked, went for a drive to see what happened when bumping around and the fuse blew, so change it and they worked again, for 5 mins and blew. so changed it yet again, (running low on 10a fuses now) and left it in the drive for 15 mins and all ok.

so seems to be while driving they blow.

where shall i look now?

[POPEYE]

They probably just tapped into the highbeam wire with those orrible scotch lock thingys, summats definatly touching metal, can ya get any pics in there? might help, just wondering if one of the connectors at the headlight as been pulled loose and touching but you said the heads are ok i think?
i take it all was working fine till you removed the spotlights?

[POPEYE]

right!! wiring needs to be exposed to see whats touching then, makeing contact when your driving and shorting out, lazy bstds didn't even use scotch locks then

[muddle]

everything was fine before spot removal, just a hell of a bodge, the wiring behind the n/s is a bit of a birds nest with connectors and whatever else, i just hate electrics.

spose ill have to reomve all again and have a closer and more anal look at it all.

but its got to be related to those red wires hasnt it?

and just a thought but even if a wire isnt touching metal but is close could it arc? (dont know if thats the correct word for it, but spark jump from wire to chassis?)

[POPEYE]

I doubt it arcing, more likely a bear live one dangling very close to either metal or an exposed earth wire, as movement sets it off, sounds like a right bodge in there, really you need to strip back to good wires and replace all that duff shoit, not too hard, long as you have some good wire at the headlight plug end you can connect onto, replace one at a time so you dont get crossed over and either use crimp connectors or if you can solder the wires together and make sure you either slip heatshrink covers over the join or well wrap it with insulating tape, if ya cant solder just bare back and twist together and tape over, i'd add a small cable tie to each joint to stop the tape sliding, that will do for a tempory measure,

as your blowing the "gauge" fuse i'd have thought its a sidelight wire shorting out as the high beams on another fuse (i think!!! no i'm sure)

just pulling those red wires could have pulled loose another wire which is now giveing the trouble

[muddle]

right, ill go and nip the sidelight off again and double check it, and re do it, and see if it helps.

thanks for all the help so far, luke.