Hey guys, I keep popping fuses for my instrument cluster lighting. It's in fuse bay #3 in my '96 B5 A4Q. I tried upping the amp to 10 from 5 and it blew it so I'm not going any higher than that.

Was wondering if anyone's had any similar problems, or may know any tricks to fix it, before I get fructrated and rip my dash apart.

Thanks!

 

Take out the Cluster, replace the fuse, if the fuse holds, find the short to ground in the cluster. Never replace a fuse with a higher amperage one unless you want to burn out your whole harness rendering your car junk.

 

you forgot- and possibly start a fire

 

That's what happened to me on my second 944. I was like 18, working for a AMLS team (which nearly won the rolex 24 back in 1997, but that's another story).

I pretty green and adventurous and decided to mod my cluster, so I was messing with the ignition switch and the contacts got bungled, back-feeding current through the switch. fried the whole car's wiring harness. I did manage to find one at a local shop (944's are like A4's as parts cars, they're kinda everywhere) but it stunk to high heaven and I had to pull the dash out to get most of the car's electrical system back in gear.

Suffice to say it never was the same again, and I wound up putting it into a mountain at 65mph later that night... learned two lessons:
1. Electrical work is a biatch
2. You can't move the mountain