Automotive electrical shorts

Automotive electrical shorts can be very time consuming to hunt down and repair. I recently put together a short video on the method that I use to hunt down electrical problems on vehicles.

I posted the video on YouTube and so far it has been well received. I have embedded the video below for your convenience.

One of the things that I discussed was instead of jamming in fuse after fuse that I set up a 12V circuit breaker that helps me find the short. I have received several requests to show pictures of my homemade short finding circuit breaker.

Pictured above are my two most commonly used homemade contraptions. I've included links at the bottom of the page so you can get your own 20 and 30 amp circuit breakers and jumper wires brand-new. Or you can go for the ready to go kit to the left.

I personally grabbed several different amperage circuit breakers the last time I was at the junkyard. If you are blowing a 20 amp fuse you want to make sure that you diagnose the problem using a 20 amp automotive circuit breaker.

If you use a larger amperage breaker you can actually melt or damage the wiring in the circuit with the electrical short.

The reason the circuit breaker does not damage the cars wiring is because they are automatic resetting thermal cycling breakers (further explained in the car repair video below).

Finding an automotive electrical short

If you notice in the pictures of my homemade short finders I use insulated connectors whenever possible. When you replace an automotive fuse with a circuit breaker it will not physically fit in the fuse panel. This is why I have attached jumper wires to the circuit breakers.

The most important part about installing your short finding circuit breaker is you must make sure that the blades do not touch each other.

Some of the guys I work with will slide a folded matchbook cover between the two terminals but I prefer to use small insulated terminals that plug right into the fuse panel safely.

Instead of making you read along page about the method I use to find electrical shorts I thought it would be more convenient for you to just watch the four minute video. This outlines the method that I was taught in automotive electrical class.

Diagnose electrical shorts video

I personally enjoy working on automotive electrical systems. You get to use your brain and many car electrical problems are like solving mysteries. It also helps that most electrical work on cars is one of the cleaner tasks on the automobile.

As a car technician there are plenty of dirty and not so fun operations to go around. If you spend some time at becoming an ace when it comes to electrical problems your skills will bring you higher pay and plenty of challenging clean car repairs.

My General Motors sponsored electrical instructor all the way back in 1985 saw the advantages of becoming well-trained in automotive electronics.

The need for these skills today in my opinion is even more important than they were back then. Take the time to learn the principles and truly understand them and the payoff will most likely be job security.

Give this page a bookmark or it with friends. Come back to watch the video again and read more articles about auto electronics and car repairs.

This is just one of the pages from my automotive electrical repair module. You can go back to the main page and read through free articles that will further explain diagnosis and theory to help you solve automotive electrical problems

search through this car repair site and the Internet at the same time.

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A closely related page to this one provides a more in-depth look at circuit protection devises and the many different kinds of automotive fuses.

The home page for the you fix cars website provides a short but sweet rundown of the types of tools and information that is available for site visitors. This next link will take you to the homepage from this page about car repair electrical shorts

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