With my gauges coming in I wanted to prep my clock "harness" by placing a 4 pin connector in between the stock clock plug instead of using vampire clips to tap into the wires. I disconnected the neg terminal and proceeded to mod. With everything installed I tried to start up my car. Some how I managed to short out my battery I think. I needed to jump my car to get it started. While it was running the lights would dim and brighten with engine revs. Also there seems to be a humming noise coming from the alternator. Kinda stumped to where to go from here.

 

Sounds like you hooked up the wires wrong and fried the alternator and maybe the battery..Test your alternator with a volt meter and it should read 14 volts at the alternator...

 

1st id make sure bioth terminals are tight and clean then make sure no wires are touching or groundng out in the dash i doubt it

 

test the battery and alternator. if they are good undo what you did and see how the car runs. if it works fine you f'd up and try again

 

The clock harness has every wire you need independently for the gauges to work. no wire gets used twice, no additional grounding is required and if you have a weather display you are only using 4 of the wires of that harness.

4 pin connector? I'm assuming this is to make installation easier? well if you are removing the clock itself cut off all wires and then solder the 4 wires required by your gauges to this connector. If you aren't removing the clock at the moment then you'll need to splice in to the wire. Unless the harness itself is shorted I see no possibility of you shorting out your battery or alternator

check for continuity between connections and from one connection to the next. You SHOULD have continuity between each wire but should NOT have continuity between different wires of the harness connector. If you do it's shorted.

 

lights getting brighter with revs sounds like a suspect alternator

 

^^This^^

also, hopefully you've checked your fuse panels to make sure nothing's out (yeh, check everything w/a flashlight handy, won't need to pull everything)

 

It was my battery. Took it in to work today and they trickle charged it. It did not charge. One of the mechs at work tested it out and confirmed that it was dead. Well I brought my red top from Battery Bill's at mapunapuna two years ago and they replaced it free of charge. Despite his commercial being annoying, their service is top notch.
Free plug!!!!

 

LOL!

FYI the redtop isn't a deep cycle battery.

 

wow, good game for a free replacement - i suppose your alternator was taking all the load since the battery was shot

 

^yep