Keep blowing fuses, argh!

[bzbatl]

I have two issues, a little background first:

I installed a sub/amp a long time ago using 8ga wire going straight to the back. This has a 20amp fuse next to the battery in the engine compartment.

I recently swapped out my front speakers and wired them to a spare amp I had. The amp is located under the 2nd row seating.

I cut the 8ga wire and split using a fuse block at the seat. 8ga in, 8ga out to sub amp and door speaker amp.


Issue 1: I can't find a good ground near the 2nd row seats. I tried using a dremel on the seat bracket bolt and knocked off all the powder coating, but that kept blowing a fuse when I switched it on. Any suggestions for this?

Issue 2: I disconnected the door amp and left just the subs on. This blew the engine compartment fuse twice after playing for about 30 minutes.

Argh!

I'm thinking that I just need to replace the 8ga in the engine compartment to a 4ga wire going straight from the battery to the fuse block (no fuse in the engine compartment). Or is the 8ga enough, and I just need to get rid of that first fuse?

Keep in mind I'm not pulling an enormous amount of power - it's not a competition system or anything. The 8ga worked fine without blowing a fuse for 4 years by itself powering the sub.

 

[bzbatl]

So I stopped by a pro audio place and asked them what they thought, and one guy claimed that I can't be popping fuses because of a bad ground or even because of the gauge of the wire for my particular install.

"You've gotta have bare metal touching something somewhere."

I have looked everywhere and can't find the source of this. Is this true?

This is so frustrating!

 

[WrenchGuy]

Make sure your distro block is not mounted directly to metal! It's prolly plastic but. Take pics of all connection points and put em up.

 

[bzbatl]

You're probably not going to believe this, because I still don't.

My amp was bad. Ten years old, I guess it had enough bouncing around in the trucks.

I installed a new Hifonics Crunch 4-chan amp and it works beautifully. Used all the same connections, no fuses popped for 2 days.

 

[SS85]

Sweet. Grats on the fix. I got huge audio problems of my own )

As well as electrical problems ;(((

 

[WrenchGuy]

Sweet. Grats on the fix. I got huge audio problems of my own )

As well as electrical problems ;(((

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