To the other Rangie owner out there, (sorry I've lost your number)
A couple of months ago I was driving down the beach, all of a sudden a plume of smoke came out from under the dash, drivers side, left side of the footwell, anyway the plume of smoke came and went and I though no more of it, everything seemed to work and no fuses where blown.
Anyway, I came to plug my GPS into the cigarette lighter and it didn't work, decided against my better judgement to have a look,sought advice, couple of screws and the dashboard falls out,
yea right........ 6000 screws later and much curseing and swearing, plus the removal of 90% of the facia panel I got to what I wanted to get to, the
wiring loom, what a mess, I've been so lucky, the wires from the cigarett lighter have melted and are lying in the loom as bare wires, there has been a short somwhere in the lighter, can't see exactly where it's sort of melted, the dash light connection has also had something to do with what's happened this wire has also melted.
The fuses are all correctly rated and I've had them
test blown to make sure they would blow at the correct rating which they did within half an amp. So at this time I haven't got to the bottom of this, this is just an awareness for those out there who think that nothing will happen with the electrical system because it's protected by a fuse, also shows the importance of fitting fuses when installing
accessories.
If the other Rangie owner has had a similar incident please let me know what you found, I suspect it's a fault in the lighter somehwere everything seems to stem from there.
Mines an '85/'86 four door. Keep the shiny side up