Electrical Issue?

1985taylor1925

1985taylor1925

Senior Member
Heres the beef.

On friday I was driving to work and at some point around 6 am (still dark out) all my gauge lights went out. This includes the speedo/rpm/fuel gauges, and all the leds behind the heat/ac gauges and everything else in that area.

My cruise contol light still worked.

Then on the way home from work my blinkers stopped working. And then my heater fan stopped working. This literally happened in three seperate steps. 1) Guage lights 2) Blinkers 3) Heater/ac fan

I replaced the relative fuses under the steering wheel and it fixed the blinkers and the fan. But none of the gauge lights are working.

EXCEPT when I turn on my left blinker! When I press the blinker all of the dash light flash intermitantly with the blinkers. But only when I hit the left blinker, not the right. Odd huh? And then when I turn off the blinker, it lights out again.

I admit I havent done much research on this as I havent had much time, and dont really know where to start. As Ive stated before Im an ignoramous when it comes to electrical. And Ive been really busy with work. Im writing this from work right now while on break.

I am suspicious of something in the ignition/blinker setup, but honestly I dont know enough to know what I know. :)

Any insight on what might be the cause?

As always, thanks guys
 
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Look into the wiring.

If your lights are going out, there's more than likely a bare wire somewhere grounding out.

The fact that they blink WITH the left, but not the right, makes me think that the Right side is ground out.

There could be a problem with one of your LED lights too.

The gauges working seems to lead to the gauge fuze not being blown, which would indicate a ground somewhere though.

Still, I'd start with the wiring and the LEDs themselves.
 
Doc2012 said:
Look into the wiring.

If your lights are going out, there's more than likely a bare wire somewhere grounding out.

The fact that they blink WITH the left, but not the right, makes me think that the Right side is ground out.

There could be a problem with one of your LED lights too.

The gauges working seems to lead to the gauge fuze not being blown, which would indicate a ground somewhere though.

Still, I'd start with the wiring and the LEDs themselves.
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Alright. Ill look into that asap. I had planned on taking the plastic off around the steering wheel along with the panel below it and following the wiring. Just havent had a chance yet. I did splice into one of the ignition wires last summer when I installed my custom fog lights. But I dont think that would be it.

Would one bad led affect all of them? Cause Ive had several burn out in the past and the rest were unaffected.
 
Update on this as now I have a new issue and have no idea whats going on.

I changed the fuses and now all the lights work, sort of. Now Im getting some strange stuff. So there are three setting for the lights . . . everything off, then the middle setting which turns on eveything but the headlights (driving lights and interior dash lights), and then the last setting which turns on all the lights (headlights, driving lights, interior dash lights). So when I have everything turned off driving around during the day and turn on my left blinker, the blinker lights AND front and rear driving lights flash. Obviously the driving lights are not suppose to be flashing. When I then turn to the second or third setting to turn on driving lights/headlights, the left side blinker lights STAY on. So I cant use my left blinker at night cause theyre lit up solid all the time, just like the driving lights. So basically I have no left blinker at night, again unless I turn off all the lights in which case they blink along with the driving lights. By the way everything on the right side works perfectly fine.

What I have done . . .

-Changed all fuses except for the 12v "Tail" relay in the engine bay

-I pulled apart the blinker switch to see if there were any obvious issues/exposed wires. Couldnt see anything

-Checked all the bulbs on the left side, both front and back, and switched them with the right side bulbs to be sure theyre not the issue

-Drained some water out of the wire cover right above the front left blinker. But there were no wires exposed

-Looked over the wires in the ignition/blinker switch, and front and back turn signal areas to see if there are any exposed wires. I cant find anything


So I really dont know what my next step is. Do you guys think the blinker switch is the culprit? Could it be the 12v relay in the engine bay? Or a short somewhere Im just not seeing?

Thanks again guys
 
Kredence said:
I'm also leaning towards a bad switch but you mentioned testing it. I'm curious if you have a bad relay for the headlights or turn signals.
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I didnt test the swith really, I just took it apart to see if I could find any issues and everthing looked fine. The tail lights have a fuse in the interior box. It was blown and I changed it. And the only relay in the engine bay I see that would be relative is the 12v "Tail" relay which I tested today by switching with the heater relay which is identical. Relay is good. Headlights are good.

I just noticed that with lights off when I turn on the left blinker both driving lights flash as well.

So to sum it up

-Everything on the right side works fine all the time
-Left side:
-With lights off: when i hit the blinker the blinker bulbs flash along with all driving lights and the interior dash lights
-With lights on: the left (front and rear) blinker bulbs stays lit up at ALL times including when I hit the blinker. Driving lights are all on
-Headlights work fine
-Fuses and relays are good

What in sam hill is going on with my lights?? The blinker switch is $92 from autozone and is non refundable was plugged in. I spent 3 hours today following the wires looking for a short. Havent found anything yet.

So you guys think blinker switch. Any other suggestions? When I told the autozone guy the symptoms he thought it sounded more like a short
 
Do you have ANY wiring mods in the truck? CD deck, alarm, speakers? I had actually shorted a wire on a runner. After finishing some stereo work, I apparently crushed the light wire for the ash tray and shorted it out. Took a bit of time to find as it was a tiny cut.
 
Kredence said:
Do you have ANY wiring mods in the truck? CD deck, alarm, speakers? I had actually shorted a wire on a runner. After finishing some stereo work, I apparently crushed the light wire for the ash tray and shorted it out. Took a bit of time to find as it was a tiny cut.
Click to expand...

Huh. I did install custom fog lights last year which I wired into the ignition. I'll look into that tomorrow

Was the wire touching anything? Just having an exposed piece of metal from the wire wont cause a short will it?
 
Last edited:
[MENTION=56756]1985taylor1925[/MENTION] It is not your blinker switch. Think about it, multiple symptoms occur when you are trying to control one thing. Go take a look at your wiring diagram and see what all those circuits have in common. Which is most likely a ground or connector/junction point. Find the common ground and inspect it. Very very wierd things will happen when a ground goes out. The current will find a way through different grounds that's why other circuits are tweaking.
 
Forrrrest said:
[MENTION=56756]1985taylor1925[/MENTION] It is not your blinker switch. Think about it, multiple symptoms occur when you are trying to control one thing. Go take a look at your wiring diagram and see what all those circuits have in common. Which is most likely a ground or connector/junction point. Find the common ground and inspect it. Very very wierd things will happen when a ground goes out. The current will find a way through different grounds that's why other circuits are tweaking.
Click to expand...

Ya thats kinda what I was thinking too. I had the blinker switch go bad in my old ford taurus and it simply stopped working altogether. This is not the same thing. Though like I said I spent about 3 hrs today trying to trace the wires and didnt find anything. Of course half of that time was taking panels off to get to the wires.

What do you mean by "common ground"? I have the wiring diagrams in my Chilton manual and I was looking at them today. I just dont know exactly what Im looking for. Again, I havent dealt much with electrical systems and know very little about them.
 
Forrrrest said:
[MENTION=56756]1985taylor1925[/MENTION] It is not your blinker switch. Think about it, multiple symptoms occur when you are trying to control one thing. Go take a look at your wiring diagram and see what all those circuits have in common. Which is most likely a ground or connector/junction point. Find the common ground and inspect it. Very very wierd things will happen when a ground goes out. The current will find a way through different grounds that's why other circuits are tweaking.
Click to expand...

Lol, while it may not in fact be the switch, I certainly wouldn't rule it out at this point, considering its the device that controls the lights he's having problems with.
 
BlackCat914 said:
Lol, while it may not in fact be the switch, I certainly wouldn't rule it out at this point, considering its the device that controls the lights he's having problems with.
Click to expand...

I would agree. In addition, sometimes they cut out completely when a switch breaks, sometimes they don't. I had a civic with a very intermittent switch that created multiple problems.

To answer the earlier question, yes the cut wire was touching a metal flange that sat above the ash tray. The flange was grounded.

If you have a friend handy, it might be good to get a second set of eyes on this. If anything, verbally talk about the parts you've gone through. I find that simply describing the steps taken in order helps me figure out what I may have missed.
 
Lets get the FSM involved. The only really common piece that can divide the left side of the truck from the right is the main relay.

HeadlightWiring.jpg~original
 
That diagram reminds me of different molecular cellular process diagrams I had to study back when I was getting my degree in cellular molecular bio . . . just change the relays/fuses and such to molecules and energy.

So, what do we learn from this diagram? (i ask because I still dont know what Im doing :bravo:)
 
well thats the diagramw/o drl's. i assume he has drl's. also hes having a problem with multiple circuits from the cluster to the blinkers, headlights and so on. leads me to believe he has a missing ground. so therefore the electricity is going about its way finding its own ground through another ciruit which is causing them to come on when he activates his blinker. soooo find what all those circuits have in common. which is most likely a junction point or ground somewhere. the above wiring digram does no justice when he is talking about multiple circuits.
 
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