Burned fused box

[NuthinFancy]

Long story short ...my car (86 E30 es) had a huge short burning a section of the fuse box and a section of the harness that I already replaced. Now im looking at what to do about the fuse box. My question is ...should I chop of the top section of the fuse box (top section unscrews from the bottom exposing all the wires) and replace it. I know that the right way to do it is taking the motor out blah blah blah and taking the harness out and replacing the whole harness with the fuse box. My problem is that after some hard times the e30 came to be the only car in the house and while the motor and trans are perfect the electrical is a mess. I have no radio, windows don't go down, hazards don't work, the blower don't work, I have no headlights and no taillights but I do have brake lights so ive been able to drive the car in the day, but i work at night. Anyway im looking to chop of the fuse box and hardwire another fuse box cutting wires one by one and color matching them. An opinion on this would be great thanks .

[R3Z3N]

http://www.e30tech.com/forum/showthr...light=fuse+box

No need to cut wires.

[bmw325csi]

^thats a daunting task, not for the weak hearted, thats for sure.

[Cletonius]

Just replace the top half of the box. I made a pin removal tool out of a piece of 1/4" bar stock that made the job much easier. Take good notes! I cannot stress how important this is. Many of the wires look very similar, and once you let the magic smoke out, nothing works anymore.

I found three (3) different variations of fusebox when I was searching for mine. Best I can tell, there are 2 red boards and 1 green one.

If you need a fusebox, I have an extra one of the red board ones.

Edit: I have the exact fusebox pictured in the thread linked above. I traded a green board one to peerless for that red one. It ended up being wrong for my application so I have it as a spare just in case.

[NuthinFancy]

First I want to say thanks for the quick answers.

I opened up the box and there's a red wire that's screwed on with an Allen wrench bolt (only wire in the box this way easy to find) ... that Bolt holds a small piece of metal that's supposed to be attached to the board. That bolt was lose I added a washer tightened it an then turned on the car and everything that didn't work started to work EXEPT the headlights. For me its a lil hard to believe that it can be both bulbs going bad. Again all the fuses are good all relays replaced but headlights still don't work. I also switched the relay under the steering column and still nothing.

[Cletonius]

Are you getting voltage to the bulbs when you turn the headlights on?

[NuthinFancy]

No voltage to the bulbs also no voltage to the headlight fuses. But the headlight switch gives out power to the headlight wire. I opened the fuse box again today and ran the headlights straight to the headlight switch with a fuse in the line problem solved.

[Cletonius]

Not to be a dick, but problem not solved. That's not a permanent solution.

When you open the box, do you see any burned traces?

[NuthinFancy]

Na I didnt see any burned wires.