I borrowed my mother's 87 Monte. I tried to plug in my accessory adapter and when I did I blew something. The stereo quit working and so did the horn. I called mom to ask if any of it had been out before I got the car and she said the only thing that didn't work was the lighter/accessory. I have pulled every fuse from the box under the steering column and they are all good. I checked the fuse under the hood inline from the battery - good. I pulled the stereo and checked the fuse in the back of it - good. It is an Alpine stereo that she just had installed 3 years ago. I'm thinking I didn't just blow the stereo because the horn isn't working now and she said it was working when she dropped the car off. There has got to be another fuse somewhere that I am missing but I don't know where to look. I even checked the fuse in the box in the trunk and it was fine. Sorry, I don't know if it is an equalizer or an amplifier that is in the trunk. But anyway, any ideas as to what I did to cause the stereo and horn to no longer work when plugging my accessory adapter into the cigarette lighter? Much thanks in advance.

 

Sounds to me like something shorted pretty bad. Did you smell rubber burning or see any smoke?

__________________

 

There should be an "accessory" fuse which powers all those 3 items. Recheck the fuses, it should be labeled: "horn" "acc" "radio". If it isn't one of those, there are fusable links at the starter, which would be the next place to look. To check them, disconnect the battery and disconnect the wiring at the starter big terminal and pull on the fusable links, if one is bad, it will pull apart very easy.

 

There's got to be either an accessory or constant fused connection that has been blown. Go through everything with a multi-meter and see if you have voltage on both connections on the fuse block. Also, look under the hood and see if there is a fuse block there as well.

 

i looked again and went through every fuse with a multimeter. fuse looked good but three ofnthem were not passing current. thanks for all the advise guys with your help I have a chance to be able to borrow her car again

 

Glad you got it fixed in a timely manner!

__________________

 

Monte carlo is a nice powerful car. good to see you got things fixed

__________________