Ok time for my next update.
When I purchased the vehicle, the only lights that worked correctly were the front left headlight and front parking lights. No blinkers, no reverse lights, no rear tail lights. The previous owner had the reverse bulbs wired up to the brake switch via a wire that threaded through the rear window and back through the bed.
You can see that in my first post above. He covered the reverse lights with red tape so they would function as brake lights.
I was OK with this at the time of purchase, however, because I wanted to learn electrical work and what better way than doing!
.
So I'll tell my story in case it helps anyone else in the future. I learned all this from reading posts on this and "another" site and by purchasing the wiring diagram for my truck. I used just a test light.
First thing I decided to tackle was the neutral safely / rear light switch. I decided to start here since the reverse lights are separate from the brake/blinkers and decided that would be an easy start. It was missing entirely so I got a new one and with the help of a member here figured out what it should plug into. The plug was very high up under the dash so at first I couldn't find it. After hooking it up the neutral safety worked correctly but there were still no reverse lights.
Next thing I did was look under the rear of the truck, this is what I found:
It wasn't too hard to temporarily wire back up all the correct wires by using the wiring diagram. I had to undo the electrical tape back to the first set of connectors in order to tell which black/red and brown wires went to each side. So temporarily I had this:
Reverse lights still didn't work but I did have brake lights, sort of. When I would press the brake pedal, the rear lights would come on but so would the reverse lights.
when I used the turn signal lever various random combinations of lights would turn on and off. Ah, hah! I've read about the problems with the turn signal switch so figured that was the problem. So I got a new one and got it installed. That was actually pretty easy.
After the new turn signal switch was installed I tried the indicators again. Same things was happening with the random lights!
So I figured that I must have wired something wrong out back. I went back under the truck and checked all my wires...all seemed to be hooked up correctly. So I started following the wires back towards the front of the truck and when I got near the transmission, I found this "ball" of duct tape.
What could this be? It was hidden by one of the crossmembers so it was kind of hard to see at first. When I opened up the ball of duct tape I found all four wires shredded and fused together - bare wire.
Ok so I figured that since all the wires going to the back are touching each other that might be causing some of my problems.
So I fixed this temporarily like so:
When I went to test the lights again I had the following:
1. Brake lights worked properly.
2. Tail lights worked properly.
3. Left or Right turn signal would turn off the corresponding tail light properly, but no blinking.
4. No reverse lights.
Progress!
Since the turn signals work by cutting off the brake light power and replacing it with its own power from the flasher, my wiring was working correctly.
As noted above I had learned that the turn signal lights get their own power from a wire coming from the flasher. I checked for power there and there was none. I traced this using the wiring diagram and learned that the power came from the 14 amp fuse (no power there either) and that got its power from the ignition via the black/green wire. I stuck my test lamp probe in there and there was no power. So I reached up and pushed in the wiring plug into the ignition switch, checked again with the test light, and bam, power.
Tested the lights again and everyone worked correctly!
Not only that, but now my gauges worked again and so does the heater fan and windshield wipers!
Bunch of projects solved all at once!
So I finished up by replacing my temporary wiring with permanent, like so:
I could have done a little better here with my lengths of wiring because I ended up with some extra that sticks out. But I think it will be OK.
I had some wiring cover laying around that I used to replace the factory.
This looks pretty good IMO, considering I had to add some extra wiring in to have them reach after I cut out all the bad wires.
So there you go, my first project completed successfully. I know this is kind of long but hopefully someone will learn from reading it.
Couple things I learned.
1. There can be
multiple problems causing your lights not to work right. I may not have had to replace my turn signal switch because I think it was the problem with the wiring in the middle of my truck that was causing the random lights to turn on with the signals. I'll never know because I'm sure not putting my old one back on!
It had a broken cam anyway so I guess I replaced a $10 cam with a $70 switch.
2. It might have been easier to get the length of wiring harness from the engine compartment connector back to the rear from a junkyard rather than repair my harness. It's a pain in the rear to lay on your back and solder 14 connections, especially since I suck at soldering.
3. Anyone can do this with patience. I had zero electrical experience and just read up on it and took my time. Everything in this project took place over about a 3 week period, on the weekends. I would try each step and if it didn't work, I would take a break until next weekend.
4. Electricity if Fun!
