Fuse or wiring?
 

OK, I know this may be in my service manual, but I can't find it and its early A.M. so I don't feel like searching. On my way home from seeing Star Trek again tonight, I had my gauges stop working while cruising on the interstate. Blinkers also gone too. I'm guessing its just a fuse (I hope, please god don't let it be wiring) but my question is, is anything else on the same circuit that I haven't realized wasn't working? It drove me crazy not having blinkers, since I use them like I should, unlike a lot of people these days. Or, if its not a fuse, anyone ever had an issue with gauges? Maybe there is a connector under the dash I don't know about. The gauges seemed to respond when I hit the dash/gauge hood cover, but that may have just been them jumping from the shock of my angry fist (literally and figuratively).

Was the fuse. Changed it, drove it, and 10 miles later while taking off from a red light I heard it pop again... uhg. Always something.

You have a short somewhere sire. My interior lights kept shorting out didn't know what it was. Until I pulled out my arm rest and noticed the little light for the ash tray the wiring to it was caught in my short shifter where it screwed on. So if you have just recently added something to your car check it out.

Nothing changed. Only thing I could figure, and haven't tested yet, is yesterday when I had a new heavy bag loaded into the trunk, I may have pushed the battery so that the ground wire touched something. Not sure that a ground at the battery would cause only the gauge fuse to blow though. I guess I will look around at all of my grounds, and check some of the under dash wiring to see if anything is obvious.

When your gauges stopped working, did your speedometer still work? I lost my gas gauge and blinkers last week. I'm wondering if it's the same fuse.

Found the blown fuse, but it blew a new one out immediately. At least I'm making progress... I think.

Well the speedo is cable driven if your talking about an NA, if its NB, I wouldn't know. I just got back from buying a 5 pack of 15A fuses. I hope it was just somehow the battery. I noticed I had loosened it up when I crammed the bag in the trunk last night, maybe it slid and grounded out. Which wouldn't explain just that 1 fuse, so I expect I will have it blow again very soon...

and now my fucking a/c is starting to make the same old noises again. I thought it had fixed itself like magic, but I guess a new compressor (or used) is still in my future. When it clicks on it sounds like the belt is loose and wet, but its just the clutch.

If you keep blowing fuses shove some tin foil to save on money until you find the problem ;) aha

Anybody have any Miata wiring diagrams by any chance? I had a link to a page at one point but lost it. I guess I'm going to have to search for a short and/or fix some grounds. I know the evil step child of this forum has it in their garage section or something, but I always have a tough time finding it.

Found a diagram. Any idea what left and right side of I/P means for ground locations? 2 of the ground points for the cluster are there. Can't think of what I/P stands for though.

Also, since I'm far from an electrical engineer, would it be possible for the battery main ground to cause isolated issues like this one fuse blowing? My battery ground is a bit ratty around the terminal. Probably 30% of the wire strands are broken and hanging. It could have probably been fixed along time ago, but its kind of tough to work on in the trunk and I just never thought about it. Surely couldn't hurt to fix that while I'm doing.

And, if one had to guess, would you expect this issue to be more likely a bad ground issue, or a hot wire grounding out issue? Or not possible to tell. Again, I don't do electricity.

Anybody know anything about using a circuit breaker in place of a fuse? I figured if I'm going to have to deal with it, instead of replacing fuses over and over, get a self reseting breaker. Do you think this will be OK to do? I may have to go with and without gauges and blinkers at random, but at least I wont have to go through 2 fuses a day. Can get an ATC style breaker that will just plug into the socket and will reset itself when the overload is cleared (wire cools off, or whatever it is).

I had the dash out today, which is going to be a pain in the ass to get everything back together. Have to rewire my speakers and stereo shit again. I was hoping maybe it would make it easier to see anything, but realized once it was out that it didn't really help. Everything in big bundles and looms. No way to trace the shit without pulling the looms apart. I just can't do that shit. I would end up breaking something expensive in a rage. Should have seen me throwing tools and stomping around like a fool today. I don't handle frustration with cars very well. Especially this one. So many little problems trying to make me burn the car to the ground.

I'm having the same problem, did you ever figure it out??