[jfalesi]

There's a reason I majored in mechanical and not electrical engineering - I hate electricity. Hated E&M labs in college physics. Can't see electrons. They don't behave intuitively. Also, things like this happen:

Tried to wire up some auxiliary lighting this weekend. As usual, took much longer than I thought, and instead of working lights, I have non-working ignition. It's not the battery, 'cuz the dome light was on before I disconnected the negative terminal. Might be a connection to the fuse panel, as I removed it from the firewall to see what was behind it. I also removed the back half that's inside the engine bay, but I didn't disconnect any wires. I pulled the flashers and the fuel gauge connection from the front of the panel, and also the fuse for the parklights, I think. Do I have to put humpty dumpty back together to get ignition back? Also, I mounted the relays as shown - one next to the washer fluid bottle and one on the radiator support. The power leads weren't long enough to mount them closer to the firewall. I connected the power leads to what looked like a positive post near the battery. It had one wire going to the + battery terminal and one going across the wiring channel on top of the radiator support. I used one of the relay screws as the ground. I know that's probably not the best place, seeing as how the relay is plastic and all, but I couldn't find my socket wrench to unscrew one of the washer bottle mounting bolts. Anyway, I screwed something up. Did I make a bonehead mistake? How do I wire the switch up to the ignition so I can turn on the auxiliary lights even if the headlights are off? Thanks in advance,

-Jamie (hates electricity)