headlights, taillights and cluster out

If this happened "out of the blue" meaning the vehicle was fine for some period of time and then suddenly this problem developed (and you were not changing anything at the time) then I suggest you need to get it towed to a good auto electrical shop and have it checked out.  If you were doing something related to the electrical system at the time the fuses blew, then start with undoing whatever you were doing to troubleshoot the problem.  In any case, if you don't have the proper meters to test the car's electrical system, you need to get to a shop.

Red wire in the headlight switch is the  negative headlight wire

the GREEN / WHITE wire in that switch is for the parking lights negative also

if you have a multimeter take it and make sure that these wires rest at ground and that there is no type of resistance in the wiring.

Im not sure about this car but there might be a relay under the hood or in the fuse box that runs the lights also, so might want to check that.

good luck with your issue.

mehh check your illumination wires on the radio i bet its grounding out causing the fuse to continually blow out

these are the orange, ORANGE / white, or ORANGE / black wires that are on the radio harness.

So you got two problems - the original problem that causes fuses to pop and the secondary problem that doesn't allow your headlights to come on.

I would start with the headlight issue - you heard a "pop" so you know something somewhere failed.  In most cases it is a fuse that fails.  How did you check the fuses?  Did you look at them or use an ohm meter?  If you just looked at them you need to go back and check each fuse with an ohm meter (pull it out of the car, test it, put it back in).  Sometimes fuses fail and there is no visible damage to the fuse element.

Once you get that problem "fixed" then attack the tail lights.  I would start by unpluggin the radio and see if the problem goes away.  If it doesn't, I would then try removing all the bulbs in the car (they are more likely to short out then the switch).  If the fuse still pops with no bulbs and no radio installed then you'll need to divide the car up in to sections and start looking for a short to ground.  I find it almost impossible to believe though that out of nowhere a wire just shorted to ground.

Where exactly did you ground the monitor?  I once saw a coworker ground a radio to the illumination relay behind a radio which blew fuses until we removed the screw.

richl68 wrote:

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mehh check your illumination wires on the radio i bet its grounding out causing the fuse to continually blow out

these are the orange, ORANGE / white, or ORANGE / black wires that are on the radio harness.

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Have you checked the fuses for the headlight with an ohm meter?

As stated above, you need to focus on one problem or the other - trying to fix two seperate problems at the same time will leave your head spinning.

Are you trying to troubleshoot by unplugging things and pulling fuses?  Do you not have a VOM?

Like I said at first, it sounds to me like it's time for a trip to the shop.

xchrisx wrote:

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i havent checked with a multimeter yet.  .

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That should have been the first tool you grabbed.  Grab it now and start checking for shorts and grounds.

i am an idiot wrote:

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  Did you mount an overhead monitor?   Is there a lighted vanity mirror in the passenger sunvisor?  

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interesting thought mr.idiot, i must say, that would have never occured to me unless i had been in the vehicle, i'm guessing you're thinking he grouned out the wire that turns on the light in the vanity mirror whilst mounting the unit, assuming of course that the unit is in the ceiling! You really should give some thought to changing that screen name of yours, it does no justice to your brilliance! , and to the original poster of this thread, sorry i couldn't offer any help, but i just had to make this comment. Cheers.

Thanks T&T, but the name works fine for me.  They don't expect much from me. 

Just throwing this out there in case you need some help locating the short but are going broke buying fuses.  Take one of the blown fuses, grind the plastic off of a portion of each leg of the fuse.  Grind all the way to the metal.  Solder a wire to each leg of the blown fuse.  A few feet long.  Connect the other ends of the wires to a 12 volt lamp socket.  Place the appropriate lamp in the socket.  Plug the above apparatus into the fuse slot that keeps blowing.  Instead of blowing a fuse, the lamp will illuminate to full brightness.  Any time the lamp is bright, the short is still there.  Maybe you can unplug plugs and lights until you find the one that makes the light go out.  Then figure out what all is connected to that plug to narrow your problem down.