Alright guys and gals, I'm i a bit of a pickle here and would appreciate some help, i have a 1998 dodge dakota v6 3.9 club cab and the other other day my running lights went out(oranges in front and tail lights in back and dash lights) I replaced the fused, nothing, I replaced the Head light switch....still nothing. I've done some reading up and some say to check the wiring harness that goes through the firewall(right side if looking at engine bay from front bumper) for corrosion, those wires looked fine, now when i play with the switch a little(between running and head light setting) the lights will pop on. Weird right? now i was wondering if there was a way just to switch the tail lights on with a switch spliced in the harness??? or if any knew what the problem might acually be. And I'm not about to go look for a short in the harness with it being 10-30 degrees out to find out there is or isn't one.
I would very much appreciate some incite to this problem because until I do figure it out um stuck anywhere when its dark out.
Oh and btw my head Light still works, just the running lights

 

Oh, also i didn't know if this would be part of the problem but i just recently installed 3 12"s in my truck. I wouldn't think that would be a problem but if it is then let me know.

 

Sounds like you have a short some where in the system. Not that that helps much. I would start tracing the running light wiring with a voltmeter to see if you can trace the short. I don't think the subs would have caused this problem but maybe.

 

so, it's looking like there's a short somewhere. But its currently 10 degrees out right now and I really don't want to spend hours in the cold looking for it. But come summer time, I'll fix it the right way.
But back to my question, could I just run a power wire back to the tail lights and splice it in to the Brown wire and make it switchable? I don't why it wouldn't but I don't know if it will mess with my computer.

 

I'll take a stab at this one...First of all, yes you could run a wire to switch power to the tail and parking lights. However you would need to run wires to each individual light, cut the factory harness at the light and splice in the new wire for each one, then run those wires all in to the cab of the truck and connect the switch and power from the battery. Or at least wire in a relay with your new switch to send 12 volts to the lights that way. There are 2 problems though. It would interfere with the blinkers and hazards if you cut the parking light wires out of the circuit and it could cause problems for the rest of the electrical system in the truck. I don't know if a 98 has a central timer module, but it has to have a body control module of some sort and what you are thinking of doing has a very good chance of frying the module. Dodge light circuits are pretty sensitive. Another problem (at least in my opinion) is running the separate wires to the lights and all that would be a royal pain in the butt. It will probably be as lot less trouble to find the problem and fix it instead of running your own light wires.

When you installed the subs did you install an amp for them too? If so, where and how is it grounded? Did you just set the box in the back of the truck or is it screwed down or bolted to the truck somehow? There are wire harnesses running down each door sill, and under the back seat and/or back of the cab under the carpet. The harnesses contain wires for the parking lights and brake lights too. The parking/brake lights wire may run down only one side of the cab. Without a wiring schematic for yuor truck I have no way to know which side but it's not hard to check both sides. I would say start with the driver's side harness. You need to remove the door sill and kick panels on both sides and check the harnesses for any pinched, chafed or cut wires. Also check where you mounted the amp and sub box and see if you accidentally put a screw through a wire or wire harness. If you find the problem wire, cut it, splice it back together, solder and tape it up securely or use insulated butt connectors. Replace the parking light fuse and see if the lights work normally again.

Another thing to check is if you had to remove the radio to install your subs and amp. Pull the radio and look at the radio harness. There are 2 illumination wires in it, a black/yellow wire and an orange wire. The orange is for the dash light dimmer circuit, its voltage varies with the positin of the dimmer dial. The black/yellow is part of the parking light circuit. If either of these is cut and shorted to ground by touching the case of the radio, or if you accidentally connected a wrong wire from the audio system to one of these wires, it will cause the exact problem you are having with the parking lights.

These are a few things to look for. It is much more advisable to find the short and fix it. Maybe see if a friend or someone you know has a garage you can use to keep out of the weather while fixing the truck. If all else fails, a good local independent car audio shop could probably troubleshoot and find the problem for you. I would not take a problem like this one to Best Buy. You would need a shop that can spend the time to find the problem.

Jimmy

 

well, it was an nice enough day to to some looking around and i found the problem, it was my trailer light socket, looked like some snow got in it and did some damage, the connector itself looked like a little bomb went off. I was hopeing just to cut of the connector and it work but it didn't. So a ran a power wire back and spliced it into the brown wire before it split into two for each tail light. I only thought that it would just light up the tail but weird thing happened, it worked for the tail's AND it got the dash to light up and oranges in the front, and my dimmer its working for the dash lights. So i'm assuming that when the trailer connector went, it took the BCM with it but still not sure yet, but at least i know know where to start my search.