McIntosh amp pops the fuse straight away

[Curare]

Hey guys and girls. I'm just getting through the last stages of a rebuild of a 3.0 RB.

I still have a few hurdles to cross, and one is that the stereo doesn't make with the oonce oonce.

I had the seats and amp out so I could do a full detail and vaccuum, and forgot about it (that was april) until I went to go get new tyres today. The stereo didn't make noise so I investigated and found the 20 amp fuse in the engine bay block was blown. I added another an that instantly popped too.

Not sure what's causing this, but if the car is off then it not the amps fault, right? It's a power line short? Am I right?

[tom_kauf]

Yeah I think you're right. The amp should not be getting power from the battery directly. I'm not 100% sure, but I'd say that it should be switched power via the ignition.

One more thing you can try is unplugging all the connectors from the Amp. If there is a short in the power cable to the amp, it will still blow the fuse with everything disconnected. So the amp itself may be fine.
If it does still blow the fuse (or if you want to save on destroying another fuse), find the pin on the connector that supplies power to the amp, and measure resistance to ground. You might find you have a total short to ground.

[Curare]

Yeah, that was pretty much going to be my plan of attack. Remove amp, plug in a new fuse and go troubleshoot the power system.

[Curare]

So I spent a bit of time on sunday sifting through my stereo issues.

I removed the amp and put a new fuse it, nothing blew so I can hang my hat on the power lines up to the plug being ok.

I then opened the amp up and saw what I assume was water damage, the PCB is corroded, and even after a good clean with contact cleaner it's still shorting.

I think it's toast.

Anyone have another they want to sell me?!