On Tue, 29 Nov 2011 12:51:19 -0800 (PST), DerbyDad03
wrote:

On Nov 29, 3:52*am, micky wrote:
OT for home repair??

Two problems at once.

A friend in a 2002 Nissan Frontier pickup skidded *on wet leaves in
the rain, and hit the guard rail with the front right corner of his
car. *The right front turn signal went out, and so did his tail
lights, dashboard lights, and the beeper that beeps when he leaves his
headlights on.

We took out the light cluster on the right, and the turn-signal bulb
glass was smashed, and the filament missing, but the two metal posts
that held up the filament were not bent. * We replaced the bulb and
the turn signal worked again.

We looked in the engine compartment fuse box, 12 to 18 inches from the
light cluster, and the tail light fuse was blown. * Replacing that
made everything else *work again.

Could hitting the guard rail blow the fuse?
Ever heard of this happening?
How?

He's 99% sure everything worked prior to that. Although one can drive
wihtout tail lights and not know it, It was dark during the accident,
and he would have noticed if the dash lights weren't working before.

I only see one problem:

A driver who didn't slow down enough based on the driving conditions
at the time. I treat wet leaves the same as I treat ice and snow -
drive on them as slow and as carefully as reasonable.

So you've never skidded.

Anyway, the fuse could have been jarred enough that the filament broke
or a bare wire or connecter could have made contact with a ground
during the impact causing a temporary short. For all we know, there
was water hanging around some low spot in the engine compartment and
it splashed on an electrical connection causing a brief short.

Things can shift (violently) during an accident so it's really hard to
say what could have caused the fuse to blow.

I had a '66 Rambler that blew the radio fuse whenever I went over a
large bump. I never did find that problem, but I learned to slow down
- a lot - on bumpy roads. ;-)