Parking light not working--looking for electrical diagnosis advice

nmwranglerx

nmwranglerx

Caught the Bug
My wife noticed that the parking light on my driver's rear tail light wasn't working while we were out camping last week. I put a new bulb in today and it still doesn't work (tested the new bulb in the passenger side tail light). The brake light, reverse, and turn all work, it just doesn't illuminate when I turn my lights on. I disconnected the tail light housing and plugged it in on the passenger side and all lights are working. I also looked at the wiring loom and didn't see any obvious signs of wear. Anyone have a suggestion on how to further diagnose the issue?
 
nmwranglerx said:
My wife noticed that the parking light on my driver's rear tail light wasn't working while we were out camping last week. I put a new bulb in today and it still doesn't work (tested the new bulb in the passenger side tail light). The brake light, reverse, and turn all work, it just doesn't illuminate when I turn my lights on. I disconnected the tail light housing and plugged it in on the passenger side and all lights are working. I also looked at the wiring loom and didn't see any obvious signs of wear. Anyone have a suggestion on how to further diagnose the issue?
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Use a 12 volt test light or multi meter at the housing plug and check for voltage. Do you have anything spliced in that might be causing problems?
 
sipafz said:
Use a 12 volt test light or multi meter at the housing plug and check for voltage. Do you have anything spliced in that might be causing problems?
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Ok thanks. I don’t have anything spliced into the drivers side tail light. I took your advice with the multi meter and here’s what I found. There’s a white wire with a orange stripe going into the connector from the factory wire loom. This appears to be the power wire and it’s not getting power (when lights are turned on) reads “0” on multi meter. I’m guessing I need to check for power up in engine bay maybe next but it’s reaching near 100 degrees out currently.


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Tail lights acting up is sometimes indicative of a TIPM failing. Chase the wire loom up and look for damages before you jump on that grenade though. A ghetto fix would be to tap that wire on the other light and run it over and cut the body side of wiring loom of the dead wire and tie it in there.
 
Little more diagnostics this afternoon led me to the fusebox and turns out the fuse in location M18 was blown. :doh: Yes, you guessed it, M18 circuit is for the right tail light. I tested the circuit with a test light and it was good. Swapped in the fuse from M17 (left tail) in there and the tail light worked. Easy enough fix but I wonder what caused it to blow or how long it's been like that? Guess I'll just put a new one in and keep an eye on things.
 
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