I am slowly restoring an 84 Dodge pickup and I am having a devil of a time finding a short in the tail light wiring. Can someone point me in the right direction in troubleshooting this problem? It is a dead short . . . the fuse burns out the second it touchs the fuse holder.
Tim

 

that happend in my dash board on my 89 is it 4wd? are any wires touching any where that they should not be?

 

check all your wiring for your brake system. from your fuse box to your brake light. get a multimeter and check voltage on the wires, if there is breaken, crossed, or cut wire somewhere in the wire thats not get the voltage it need. and check all your grounds, pull the grounds off and clean them up, might save problems later on if you are fixing up the truck.

 

Get a schematic if you don't already have one. Unplug the lights and fuse from their sockets. Look for a connector as close to the middle if the system as you can (i.e. if there are 5 connectors between the fuse and the light, start with # 3). Disconnect it and use the millimeter to check for a short on the two segments (from fuse to connector 3, and from connector 3 to the light). Do this again with the segment you find bad (i.e. if the fuse-3 was bad, disconnect # 2 and then isolate if fuse-2 or 2-3 is bad). Examine the wire segment you determine is bad, and if necessary, just run a new wire in that section.

 

Thanks for the help . . . with it I was able to get it working again. tm

 

try replacing your turn signal switch it wil make your taillights and brake lights do wierd things.believe me i checked my 87 power ram from front to rear and couldn't figure it out until i finally listened to my uncle and replaced the turn signal switch now everything works perfect.hope this helps