I've got an 88 sammi.  The fuse for the coil/dist. (15 amp) keeps blowing.  I've disconnected everything from the fuse and it still blows.  (coil,dist,gauges)  It seems I'm getting continuity between the lines.  I even by-passes the ignition coil and the fuse still blew.  I talked to a guy that works on sammi and he said to replace the steering column because this was a common problem.  Has anyone had this problem?  I've gone through about 25 fuses so far and I'm about to give up.

Thank You for your help.

Samurais are famous for electrical troubles. The first thing I would say is start checking your grounds. Check the ones associated with this fuse.

I have not heard of the steering column trouble ever.

Take a blown fuse and solder a pizo buzzer across the two sides of the blown fuse( rat shack) and plug it back in it should make noise, now start moving your wires and stuff around, when the noise quits you found your short, just make sure all of the components that hook to that fuse are unpluged.

this sounds like a great way to get electrified.
of course you haven't lived until you've welded yourself to your car.

this sounds like a great way to get electrified.
of course you haven't lived until you've welded yourself to your car.

Now that would be a trick that I would like to see  

I really wish I had a picture of it. I was about 16 or 17 and was taking the battery out of my car. I was using a socket wrench wasn't paying attention as I undid the positive (before taking off the negative ) terminal whap I hit the body of the car and welded the socket wrench and a piece of my hand to the body. let me tell you after I got the feeling back in my arm from the zap my hand hurt like hell.

You have to respect a 550 amp hour battery,I have seen guys try to pull a battery cable off of a battery when it was glowing red hot and a friend of mine was changing his oil and melted his wedding ring on the starter, clean off, almost took his finger too, so when I work on rigs I pull my watch and ring off.

I've checked the grounds.  Still blowin'.  Someone told me to bypass the fuse w/ a wire and whatever is shorted will get hot.  Sounds risky to me.  Has anyone tried this?  Thanks for the replys.

I've checked the grounds.  Still blowin'.  Someone told me to bypass the fuse w/ a wire and whatever is shorted will get hot.  Sounds risky to me.  Has anyone tried this?  Thanks for the replys.

make sure that you have full coverage insurance first and park it in a field away from trees and things and last but not least make sure you have all of your good cds out of the rig.

So I hooked everything back together and the fuse didn't blow.  Got her back started and drove about 10 miles with out any problems.  My next question is this....Would you clean all the wire harnesses w/ contact cleaner or leave it alone since the fuse isn't blowing anymore?  I don't know if it is fixed or not since I really didn't do anything.  Gotta love electrical problems.
Thanks again

spraying the harness will not do anything, do like I posted earlyer and solder a buzzer or a light across one of your blown fuse's if you have a friend to see it go out, I like the buzzers because you can work alone, so keep the tester in the glove box and when it shorts out again pull over and put it in and look for you short, but while it is working now you can unplug stuff to see what all you need to unplug when it shorts out again, it is safe to do and you will only have like half an amp going through the harness.

I think I found the problem.  The ground from the thermostat housing was shorting out.  The test light trick helped alot.  thanks for the help.  I'm crossing my fingers that it's not going to happen again.  This is a great site.  Smart people with great advice.  Thanks Again