OK heres the deal,

At first it started i was just driving along at night with my headlights on and the dash lights were working and everything and then they went out, got home check the fuses and found out it was the illumintation 15amp fuse. OK so replaced it, next night did the same thing, replaced again, blew again, replaced with a 20amp fuse ok for 1 night, ABS and Parking Brake Indicators on, today no headlights on blinkers stopped working, the indicator on the dash was solid and the corresponding taillight was out. Took out the 20amp and put in a new 15amp fuse. Got the blinkers back, and headlights still working but now no riding lights. Fuse blew again. Just finished doing the following. New 15amp fuse, took out cargo lamp bulb because replaced a couple of months ago and thought it might be shorting the system. Checked all fuses, all good. Blinkers OK, Headlights OK, Stop lights OK, NO Riding lights, Dash light OK, ABS and Parking Brake inicators off but dont come on at all, and what scares me the most is i had no check engine lights, oil, oil pressure, temp, voltage, tach, or speedo, only the gas gauge are working! Please somebody i dont know what to do.

 

your gonna have a short to ground..somewhere you have a hot wire thats shorting against something metal and you need to find it... its hard b./c it can be anyway... do you know who to use a DMM?

 

a digital mulitmeter yes i have one but what should have it set at

 

Ouch yeah, you are grounded out somewhere big time...

When i saw that you put a 20 in, and it blew, I was expecting to read something along the lines of "Then I put a 60 in and its all right"...

I had a friend once, who thought that putting in a bigger fuse meant that it would fix his problem... Sure it did, until his car burned down... (He found one of my 50's I had laying around my garage at my moms house, and say "Hey if that 15 amp fuse is blowing everytime and I put this 50 in, and it works, then I fixed it..." ... WRONG)

But yeah, hope you find it... I would first check around the firewall and around the areas where wires can get cut from vibration against metal... If that doesnt work then just start checking EVERY wire until you find it...

 

I've heard the headlight switch has an issue with melt down. Anyone think it could be connected? It is directly related to all other lighting.

By the way, the dash panel front is a pain to remove if you do not have a tilt wheel. Helped a friend replace his headlight switch.

 

ok heres an update. I did some checking around with the wiring and found out that one of the fuses wasn't pushed all the way in, when i put it back i got back the gauges and the riding lights! whep! i still don't know about the headlights blowing havn't tried them yet. the 3rd brake light is still out, i think thats where the short is or at the tail light becuase when i got it all the bulbs in the 3rd light and the left taillight where burned out so i'll see if thats the problem. We've gotten alot of rain/snow past weeks and now so the housings might be leaking and shorting out in the bulb sockets?

 

heres the up to date situation,
light bulb is out and put a new fuse in and it still blows, only when i turn the lights on at night but the switch changes the headlights so i don't think its the problem, nither is the blub i took out, but what i don't get is it only blows the fuse after what seems to me a certain amount of time or miles, i would think if there was a short asoon as u turned it on it would blow. I need to figure this out soon cause i don't like driving at night with no lights lol. On a postive note my truck is running the best it ever has, don't know why but floored it and left a long black streek at the stop light and it had some real power and no ticking neither lol! Fix one problem another one shows up

 

aint that always the case? LOL


if you took the bulbs OUT and tried to see if that was the problem .. and if you have a short,, it will still blow the fuze... even if you have the bulb out ,, you still have a wire thats hot leading to the bulb socket that still could be grounded out... (if im reading you right from what you said above thats what it sounds liek you did) still doesnt tell ya much though .. you already knew a hot wire is grounding somewhere... if it was the return or ground it wouldnt matter... b/c a ground is a ground no matter where its at.. if it wasnt grounded properly it just wouldnt work but still wouldnt blow a fuze

i think your on the right track..checking where the problem first started...no tail lights would indicate a bad cirtuit... its REALLY tuff to shoot for short to grounds in the automotive world b.c you really never know what the hell gos where.... in an ideal world you would find the longest section of the hot wire that is suspect and check for continuity to ground... but with the modern wiring all sorts of crap goes through switches and relays and such wich would give you odd and inaccurate readings.... best thing to do is VISUALLY check the wiring that runs from the cab/PDC (power distribution center) to the rear and see if theres any fraying... surprisingly ive had good luck running tests liek this in pitch dark.. (like 2 AM with no ambiant light) the reason i say this...we already know its a hot wire ground out some where... well when that type of situation happens it TENDS to have a spark or likes to arc against its closest ground (best and worse thing about electricity is it will ALWAYS travel the shortest distance to find earth...its happy at earth (ground))))) ... so you could have the lights on and working like you said and climb underneath and start wiggling wire bundles untill you get a repetitve result ie lights go out every time you wiggle the left tail light harness wiring.... OR you get some kind of arcing or flashing from a spark when a certain wiring harness is jostled against ground.. at the point of origin of the short.

i know it sound primitive and un reliable but ive fixed a few cars with elec problems by doing this... the CORRECT way is to run DMM short to ground checks on ALL the vehicles lighting circuits but hell ... youd need DC's master copy of the wiring shcems and ALOT of time .. and a COMPLETE understanding on the individual circutry... another words PITA... try what i said above and if that doesnt lead you to no where..then alot of pateicce with your trusty DMM would be the next step.

you are on the right track though... if you have a leaky seal around a lighting fixture it would tend to short hot wires prematurely...

keep us posted and i hope this novel helps!!!!!!LOL

 

yes it does thank you, going to check em today, well first got to get some new fuses oh while i'm at the store should i buy some fuel injector cleaner? I don't know if that stuff works or not. Also i saw that there are about 5 wires sticking up from behind my bedliner. I think the prevoius owner had something hooked up in the bed to the lights or something, they are just wires with connectors on the end could these be causing the problem? Well time to start looking for the short, sucks though cause shes real greazy from all the undercoatings the previous owner did, guess thats why she's in such good condition. Thx again.

 

well yea i would say that those wires could be a problem lol!!!! id check them out ASAP!


oh yea fuel injoector works good... i usually use ti concentrate... meaning i put the whole bottle in at a half a tanka in stead of a full tank.