I could use some help with an electrical problem that just started with my 74
The interior light behind the seats along with the lighter and radio are dead.
The fuse in the box keeps blowing out.
I am thinking there is a bare wire somewhere behind the stock radio thats is causing the problem.
The stock radio has never worked since I have owned the car and the owner before me had a fancy radio installed behind the seats which I pulled out afterI noticed this problem. I thought one of the wires to that radio was causing the problem.
I haven't noticed any bat drain because the fuse blows out too fast.

 

Hi Schoon, the problem could be behind the radio since the po messed around in that area. I might look at the cigarette lighter connection first since that's easier to get to, and look at the door switches just to be sure there not the problem. You said a radio was behind the seats, are all those wires disconnected? Don't forget to disconnect the battery first and reconnect it when you get to the area you want to test. For me electrial problems are the hardest to fix, I sure someone else can give you better help. PG

 

A constantly blowing fuse is almost always a positive wire shorting to ground. The fact that corvette's don't have alot of exposed metal actually makes this problem easier to find than in most cars. I would bet ,as PG said, that it's in the console and prolly not behind the seat. You can start by gettinga good supply of fuses and start unhooking things 1 by 1. Start with the lighter....disconnect the leads, and try a new fuse. If it blows...try the radio next, and so on. Also look forwire ties around groups of wires as they can rub through the wires and cause a short. If the P>O just cut the wires from the old radio and didn't tape or cap them, they could be touching a ground also.
let us know how it goes,

 

I had the same problem with my 79 kept blowing the radio fuse. After pulling the console I found a loose wire touching the metal bracket for the console, moved it away from the metal taped it up and no more problems. Hope yours is that easy.

L82Steve

 

Why waste fuses??? And cash???

Put your multi-meter (see my sig line below)positive and negative probes on the fuse input and output. It's gonna give you a12 V read (about). THEN, try ax's tricks. When you get to the guilty device, your read is gonna drop to 0 V. UNLESS, the guilty circuit is grounding outUPCURRENT ofthe device itself, and DOWNCURRENT of the fuse output point.

If the latter is the case, you're gonna have todo some serious fishin', cause pullin' the guilty device won't show the power drop.

 

Here's something for you to think about. When I bought my 71 there were a few electrical things I had to fix. One of them was the rear cargo light wasn't working. After taking out half of the interior and carpet I found out that somewhere along the line the carpet must have been replaced and they sprayed what looks like contact cement (or some other sort of spray glue) against the rear deck which ended up on the wires to the light housing. It appears (at least to me) that the thinners in the glue must have broken down the insulation on the wire causing about 8 inches of wier to become exposed and short out. This explains why the previous owner cut the wire clear up by the fuse box and when I reconnected it, I kept blowing fuses. I ended up splicing in a new peice of wire and it hasn't blown a fuse yet. Hopefully this might help you. Good Luck
Kev

 

Thanks for the input. This could be the problem I will need to check it out.
My radio and cig lighter are also not working.
They must be on the same circuit.