Need electrical help!!!!!!!!

[BFC]

Can somebody figure this one out.



My back up lights won't come on(cab or tailgate). Everything seems normal, I got juice to the sockets but lites won't come on. I have juice to the sockets, transmission in reverse or not(auto), so the lights should be on all the time right? But they are not, ever.



Take the same bulb put in the brake socket, hit the brakes, works just fine. I checked all the fuses, relays anywhere those damn pink wires are, everything looks good with the test lite.



Help, I'm running out of tools to trow in the yard... .....



Glenn

 

[work2muchplay2little]

BFC, I haven't yet looked this up in the manual, but it's possible that the switch for the back-up lights completes the ground and that power is constant to the sockets. Might check to see if you've got continuity from the ground side of the socket to ground with the shifter in reverse. If not you may have a bad switch.

 

[BFC]

work2much,



No continuity from the ground side to ground. Which switch you

talking about? Everything looks kosher on the steering colum. .



Glenn

 

[Missouri Mule]

As I recall on most transmissions they have the backup light switch near the linkage on/in the trans.

I think work2muchplay2little ( can you believe I rembered that handle).

is correct the backup light switches work off the ground usually.



Tomorrow I will look in manual.

 

[B.G. Smith]

Switch?

The back up light/neutral switch is screwed into the lower edge of the transmission case on the drivers side, might just be disconnected. bg

 

[work2muchplay2little]

BFC, I'm looking at my manual (1999; pg. 8W-51-2) and it looks like the back-up switch actually does switch the hot lead. So if you've got power to the sockets, it's most likely a problem getting with the ground side of the socket not being connected. The diagram shows that the wires going to ground after the socket have a connector inline, then the two back-up lamp ground wires are spliced together, then go through one more connector before being tied to ground. Might be somewhere in one of those connections. If you ground the ground side of the socket, do the lights come on?

 

[Great White]

testing the reverse lamps

Be sure to "probe" the socket where the lamp resides. By doing this you will eliminate errors.



One frequent mistake persons make while checking circuits is to use a meter that has an internal resistance so high that it does not load the circuit.



If you are faced with a high resistance in the lighting wiring and the meter's internal resistance (around 50 meg ohm for digital) is greater the open's resistance YOU WILL GET A NORMAL VOLTAGE INDICATION!



Get out your soldering iron and get a large 12v lamp(1157) and some jumpers and fabricate a test lamp. I even have one using a motorcycle horn. The idea is to load the circuit (volts x amps=watts) to a value greater than it's normal load (slightly).

The reverse light circuit is hot to the transmission switch violet/black chaser and is fused to 10 amps.



Rich

 

[Turbo Thom]

I know this is not related but the trouble with trailer brakes 99 times out of 100 is the lack of ground. Always go to ground first then trace the hot wire.

Good luck.

Preston

 

[BFC]

thanks everybody

It was a bad switch, shifter/steering colum. I got lights now! Thanks for all the input.



Glenn