Restoring Rusty

[Gregski]

Thank you Titomars, le me step through these one by one

Originally Posted by Titomars

check the bulbs!

checked, first of all they are new, and second I took them out and touched them with two wired directly to the battery and they went on

[Gregski]

Originally Posted by Titomars

... pull the connector off the switch at the trans and jump the wires. With the key on the lights should light up at that point.

negative, did that and the lights did not turn on, even started the truck to make sure it was running etc. still no reverse lights

[Titomars]

Originally Posted by Gregski

negative, did that and the lights did not turn on, even started the truck to make sure it was running etc. still no reverse lights

Then you are not getting power to the connector you should be seeing a 2 wire harness with a light green wire and dark green wire. it should come up under the truck in the tunnel and go along the firewall till it gets near the column area then it will go inside the firewall. If I remember right, between the column and main harness connector. It connects to the same color wires under the dash. from that connector the dark green wire is the power and goes straight to the fuse block. the light green goes back to the lights. check that the 2 wire harness is plugged into its mate plug under the dash. It will be very close to the column. Also stating the obvious again check the fuse.

well i guess you found it so never mind about my post.

[Gregski]

Originally Posted by Titomars

Then you are not getting power to the connector you should be seeing a 2 wire harness with a light green wire and dark green wire. it should come up under the truck in the tunnel and go along the firewall till it gets near the column area then it will go inside the firewall. If I remember right, between the column and main harness connector. It connects to the same color wires under the dash. from that connector the dark green wire is the power and goes straight to the fuse block. the light green goes back to the lights. check that the 2 wire harness is plugged into its mate plug under the dash. It will be very close to the column. Also stating the obvious again check the fuse.

well i guess you found it so never mind about my post.

yup we finally got power here at the first section of wire under the dash, when we jumper this connector at least one reverse light glows - - - progress

[Gregski]

Originally Posted by Titomars

... take a volt meter and see if you get power at that connector.

Forgive me for being dumb, but how do I do that? Do I just hook up the black pointy lead from the volt meter to the dark green wire and the red pointy lead from my volt meter to the light green wire? ... and hope for 12 volts or there abouts?

Or do I touch the ground somewhere with the black lead from the volt meter and then use the red lead to first touch the dark green wire inside the connector and then try the light green wire inside the connector?

I honestly don't know, and my daddy was an electrician by trade you think he would have taught me somethin' LOL, jk

[Guilty-by-Design]

Originally Posted by Gregski

Any tips on fixin' #8 above?

assuming you have tested both sockets with a voltmeter i would try probing the wires directly behind the sockets as i have seen many that have failed internally at the solder point.

the next place i would look is the splice for the trailer lights.

[rusty76]

Glad I pulled some headlights a few years back....lol.

[Gregski]

Captain's Log Day 274

Drove the truck to work today, birds were chirpin and the sun was shining, truck started good, ran good, drove good, stopped good, and turned OK, (see #5 above)

[greg64]

Greg, use a jumper cable to tie the black meter lead to a good ground. Now, probe those spots with the red meter lead. You'll either get 12V or 0. The power for the backup lights comes from the ignition switch when in the run position. So you should get 12v on one of those two wires at the transmission connector. If you have 12, work towards the backup lights. If you have 0, work backwards towards the ignition switch.

[rusty76]

Hopefully you'll get it fixed soon. I despise electrical gremlins. Just like any new tech whizz bang when it doesn't work.

[Gregski]

just a quick pic or two of the taillights / backup lights to show you I am actually doing something not just talking about it, LOL

there is a ribbon cable (touching the exhaust pipe in first pic) that runs along the driver side frame rail from the front of the truck to the rear, it consists of four wires: brown, yellow, dark green, and light green (would it kill them to use two more distinct colors like green and blue rather than light and dark green?) anywho

those wires run to the driver side taillight, where they are joined by a black ground wire which connects to the truck bed, from there they connect to the driver side taillight and daisy chain off to the passenger side taillight

got all that good, quiz on Thursday

picture quality aint too great (shadows) sorry the sun was relentless and I have another west facing garage - you think I would learned my lesson after 10 years in the last house

second pic my deleted trailor hitch quagmire (this would be cleaned up proper 20 minutes later)

[rusty76]

I think you just pulled those wires out to make it look like you we're doing something. Lol

[Gregski]

Originally Posted by rusty76

I think you just pulled those wires out to make it look like you we're doing something. Lol

Dang, you got me, LOL

[Gregski]

backup lights troubleshooting

man oh man, the neutral dark green and light green two wire cable is made up of three parts that I know of, working our way from under the dash we have section 1, then there is section 2 in the middle, then section 3 connects to the transmission

picture shows Section 2 and Section 3 which can be unplugged from Section 1 which is still in the truck, not sure that unplugs easily

OK, wires, we get it Greg, where are you going with this?

[Gregski]

ok, so following the help and advice of some wonderful people on this forum, the Greg unplugged Section 3 of the neutral cable from the transmission switch and jumped it like so

then turned the key to the on position, heck even started the truck (why?) cause he don't know any better, he'll explain later

result - nothing, de nada, nic, backup lights did not go on

[Gregski]

so The Greg plugged his trusty yellow (paid for not free from Harbor Freight) multimeter into the plug of the Section 3 wire and got a reading of 0 volts, no bueno once again, no dice

he plugged the wires in to each other cause he don't know to ground the volt meter first to a ground then probe the other wires, he will learn that later

[Gregski]

then the Greg unplugged Section 3 of the neutral cable all together and started working his way back, he repeated the Jumping test and no go, he repeated the volt meter test and no go, so he went to unplug Section 2 and aha, check this out, the plug be jacked on one side, one connection aint much of a connection, but is it tucked away under the dash where nobody can see ~ you becha !!!

[Gregski]

So was that it? Did that fix it? Oh NO

The Greg tested Section 2, jump test good, got one reverse light anyways, volt reading now shows negative 11. something volts or positive 11. something volts depending which way I plug in the red and black leads from the voltmeter to those light green and dark green neutral wire connectors

stay tuned.... going to dinner

[enaberif]

A negative number just means your feeding the negative and positive on your volt meter backwards. It doesn't matter to be honest because well we all know having negative voltage is not possible so you know you have 12v just swap your leads lol.

And from the sounds of it you have figured out the grounding process with a voltmeter but to just refresh in your post #1409 black lead should have been grounded and red probe used to find your voltage. And I would probably say the light green = ground and dark green = power or 12v.

[greg64]

Greg, the light green wire is the backup light hot wire. Just checked my schematic. Brown is tail, yellow and dark green are the turn/brake lights. The chassis is used for ground, that's why the ribbon cable has 4 wires and not 5.

The yellow wire in post 1408 should have power whenever the ignition is on.

Incidentally, with the truck not running, you should be measuring 12.6V if the battery is fully charged. 11.something means your battery is low.

If you want a feel good moment, try running a test wire from positive on the battery to the light green wire at the transmission switch connector. This should turn on both backup lights.

You know, the power side goes through a fuse in the fuse box, according to my schematic (and memory). Try probing both sides of this fuse with the key on. Should be 12 on both sides.

[Gregski]

so after fixing the connector on Section 2 that plugs into Section 1 we hooked all the three Sections back up and tested again to discover that Section 3 is bad, so instead of trying to fix it we just removed it and plugged Section 2 directly to the transmission switch (we definitely don't need 15 feet of wire here so this is actually much tightier too)

so lets review:

Section 2 had a bad plug which we fixed

Section 3 was completely bad so we eliminated it

Result: only the left reverse light works, the right side does not, why? bad light bulb socket, see pic below, but easily fixed, basically the metal contact part would fall out of the plastic housing, so I bent one metal tab back more with a small flat screw driver and problem solved

now Rusty has two working reverse lights

[Gregski]

Then it was on to the hazard situation. Basically my hazards did not work because I was missing the hazard flasher, I did not realize you need one for the turn signals and another separate one (although same exact part) for the hazard lights to come on. So I unplugged my turn signal flasher and plugged it into the hazard socket on top of the fuse box, and whalla hazards work.

AutoZone $7.00 bucks

[Gregski]

happy

[Chaplain]

Way to go.

[Gregski]

Originally Posted by Chaplain

Way to go.

Thanks it was definitely a learning experience