Okay all.... here we go....

I hooked up a new set of fog lights in my truck over the weekend. Simple enough right? Wrong!

So now whenever I shut the truck off the ASD starts clicking away. I have to disconnect the battery and reconnect it to get it to stop.

And now my headlights are on every time I start the truck... and the headlight switch no longer controls the headlights at all.

I did not mess with ANY wiring. I ran all new wires from my new fog lights. Just took out and discontinued the old set that was not working.

I have no idea where to start even beginning to trace this out. I'm at least the 3rd owner of this truck, and SOMEONE has hacked into stuff a ton along the way I'm guess. When I recently bought the truck... Everything was working fine except the orginal set of aftermarket lights that were on the truck. I asked the guy about them, and he said he had never had them running. He said it could be a fuse or a bulb or something with them. So, I figured my best bet would just be to discontinue them instead of trying to trace out what someone else had done. Now I'm in this mess. I don't dare to run the truck. There's obviously something that is open and hot all the time, and I'm scared that it'll start a fire or fry out the rest of the electrical. Since there is no way to know if anything has a fusable link in line at the moment, it could take out a lot of things.

If I disconnect the ground wire off the battery, and leave the positive hooked up... the ground arcs when putting it back on... telling me that there is something open and hot. It does this even with the key off.

Don't even dare to take it to a local shop. My bill could be in the thousands by the time they trace out what the hell could even begin to be the problem.

I have disconnected all of the new wiring that is just ran to the new fog lights to make sure that nothing is causing the problem that way. And I have retraced out some of the old wiring harness that some other dude used on the old fog lights that came with the truck. There doesn't appear to be anything there that jumps right out at me. The old lights had an in line fuse in them that was melted beyond recognition. Which is why they weren't working in the first place. But other than that... I haven't got a clue as to what else has changed on the truck. I was super careful to not disrupt any other wiring, even under the dash, because ya just never know. And still this happened. Further investigation up under the dash has proved to be a mess as well. There are wires up in there that have fusable links in them, and I have no idea what they run to... and half ya can't get at without yarding out half the dash. There is also some sort of tiny toggle switch up under the dash that was jammed up in a bunch of zip tied wires. No idea what that runs. And there is one super tiny little 2 pin white connector just dangling off of 2 tiny little red wires. I don't believe I knocked this off of anything... It was just dangling there when I went to zip tie up the new wires I had ran for the fog lights.

My original thought was that at some point maybe someone had tried to wire up the old fog lights so that they'd come on when the headlights did. But I just don't know.

This model and year of truck doesn't have any "auto" light feature that comes off and on on it's own. And it shouldn't have "day runner" lights that go on and off with the key. So, before I disconnected the old fog lights, the light switch in the cab turned the lights on and off. Which is how it should be.

I'm just baffled. I don't think it has anything to do with the PCM... I think its just an open ground and a hot lead somewhere now. But I don't even know where to start to wrap my mind around this...

I can get pictures of up under the dash later on if anyone thinks that would help too.

If ya have any suggestions... Please hit me up. I'm lost. Thanks for the help in advance.

 

Wow... the results is overwhelming here fellas. lol.

 

Update: I have taken out an old security system (that I don't have a FOB for) and also an automatic lock system. Patched up all the wires that they had hacked into. Taken apart the dash to get to the light switch itself to make sure nothing was hacked into there, and it wasn't. Still nothing.
I bought an FCM from a salvage yard. All of the part numbers matched up except for the letters. Mine ends in AD this one ended in AE. But other than that all is the same. I asked the dealer before I bought the part if it would matter about the letters, and they said no. The different letters just mean that the older part had been superseded by the next set of letters, etc. Put that in, still no progress. All the same symptoms as before, except the lights won't come on at all now.

 

Put the old FCM back in... back to the original symptoms. Headlights come on with the key. Switch doesn't work at all. No taillights, parking lamps, or blinkers. Dash lights come on about 5 seconds after the truck starts. Shut the truck off, and the ASD relay clicks and the fuel pump runs on and off. You can hear it. Put the salvage yard part in... all the same symptoms except no headlights at all. And when you shut off the truck, the ASD relay doesn't click. But the fuel pump runs.