dash and running light problem
 

I have a 2001 SC2 everything work great til last night , I noticed my dash lights did not turn on when I turned on the head lights . upon further looking I noticed my exterior running lights were also not on. The fuse under the hood marked PARK LP was blown , when replaced as soon as I turn on the running lights (first click on knob) it blows even before I turn on the headlights (second click on knob).. I have disconnected the dimmer switch, the fog light switch , the fog light bulbs, side marker light bulbs, and it is still blowing fuses. All other lights work fine through out the car …

Sorry for the delay in digging out my schematics for this.

The Park 10A fuse is hot at all times on the high side in the UHJB.
The low side of the fuse feeds an orange wire which runs to the headlamp/turn signal switch.
The BROWN wire leaving that switch is the one relevant to your issues.
The brown wire goes to the IPJB. This is where the front and back circuIt wiring splits. It travels to the IPJB so the headlight switch position can be chimed if you leave your lights on (CHIME module is fused through IPJB) Wiring splits at same point.

Front:

Brown wire exits the IPJB and goes back to the UHJB (yes I checked multiple times).
Gets messy from here.
The brown wire enters the UHJB. It then feeds (does not indicate how/where)
One filament of the LF PARK TURN LAMP
LF MARKER LAMP
One filament of the RF PARK TURN LAMP
RF MARKER LAMP

The grounds for the LF bulbs above are black and run to the UHJB.
The grounds for the RF bulbs above are black and run to the RIGHT FORWARD LAMP SPLICE PACK.
The Light Blue wires at the bulbs are for the turn signals.

Rear:

Brown wire exits the IPJB at the split mentioned above.
It travels to the back of the vehicle as a brown wire, then splits into three branches.
Left Side Taillight Assy
Right Side Taillight Assy
License Plate Lights

For each tail light assy:
The brown wire powers the
Rear Side Marker lamp
One filament of the Tail/Stop Light Bulb

The license plate bulbs are of course powered in parallel.

---------------------------------
Keep it simple at the beginning per Andy.

The info below is only if you do not find the short elsewhere
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In addition to checking the locations Andy mentioned, if that doesn't pan out and you chase the brown wire all over the place, you may wish to
1) check for a bad headlight switch.
2) check for melted wiring/contacts on the underside of both fuse panels, especially where the brown wire splits. I do not remember if the IPJB connections for the lights are connectors. Some tie ins there are hardwired, some are plugs.
S car fuse panels are known to be problematic w respect to overheating and "melting the actual oins" and make contact with neighboring contacts. If the neighboring contact is a ground, you get stuff like this.

Sidebar: Do not use a high charging rate cell phone charger in your lighter socket. It was designed for short duration high current use as a lighter. Long term use with high amp cell phone chargers overheats the contacts on the back of the IPJB. That particular contact also feeds your fuel pump. And the chime. So if your lighter and chime don't work and your fuel pump isn't priming..........

Switch check
The easiest way to take the headlight switch out of the circuit (bypass it) is to jumper the orange wire going into the switch to the Brown wire exiting the switch and leave the switch in the off position.. The fuse is still in the circuit should something unexpected happen.
The switch may have crud or corrosion that is bridging the hot to ground as the switch is rotated. I've never taken one apart so I don't know if the switch contacts are inside a sealed enclosure like the window switch, You could try the old "sweep the contacts" method of corrosion removal which consists of working the switch through all positions till your hand cramps, then repeating ad nausea. There is no grounded surface inside the switch shown in the schematics but it doesn't show the interior of the switch.........

Fuse panel check

IPJB is straightforward to remove for inspection. Google it on saturnfans, read the first few posts, then go to the end nd work backwards, as the dude who did the writeup took apart way more than h had to.
UHJB: I believe there are just several bolts holding it down.
Disconn battery.

Thank you for all the help !!!, I had already unplugged the tag light harness also , so the only lights still hooked up were the right and left tail lights , I did not unplug those sine they were working , Now after reading the reply's on my post I decided to unplug them any way. I installed another fuse and when I turned on the lights the fuse did not blow and the das lights worked . So at this point my best guess was it was a problem with one of the tail lights, I looked for a bad wire and seen none so I reinstalled the right side first and the fuse was still good. So it must be the left side then , so I installed the left side expecting the fuse to blow and it did not !! I drove the car from NC to Philadelphia and back with no issues but I did carry and extra 10 fuses with me just incase.. Thank you again everybody !!

Sounds like it was just a loose connection to me then. Glad to hear you got it "fixed". I hate doing electrical work on a car.

still good?

It may be time to purge some people, derf. Don't you love it when they get help and never come back?

I have been remiss regarding the user database. I'll be sure to get right on that....

Purge ppl?

Purge ppl?
 

I thought these sites are created for ppl who love and have questions about their saturns? So some guy joins to learn about issues with there vehicle ,,so where does one go since they don't make saturns anymore and face it GM isn't much help as they forget about these models. So now comes the dilemma,,,does this site as part of the requirement to join this forum have to be married to it or buddy buddy in order to get info on an issue? Many folks live a busy life and don't sit by their computer to monitor every min a web site, we have lives too. Now some folks might have nothing better to do than be tied to this forum 7/24 not that there's anything wrong with that, just not everyone can do that. This forum I assume was created to help folks out about their saturns by folks who have a wealth of information to share I mean what good is it to have all this information and not do anything with it? But to complain about a member who doesn't frequent the site like clock work who needs help, you offer help and then complain afterwards?? Really? My take is if you don't want to share info to help others out then why are you here offering help and then complain about it? And then be bitter in a statement to Admin that they need to PURGE an individual, get real brother. If you do not wish to share then don't comment and complain about afterwards.