hey guys i just bought an 89 RS today and I love the car, but I have a problem that I didn't notice when i bought it. The previous owner rewired a new tach, oil pressure and temp gauge. Those gauges light up, but the dash lights, tail lights, and parking lights don't work. the funny thing is that the head lights, turn signals and brake lights work just fine. I looked under the dash and there are not any wires but up it almost looks like he made his own wiring harness.
I found a 3 wire harness that is not atached to anything. I has a orange wire, orange wire with black stipe and a pink wire. Does anyone know what this belongs to?
Does anyone have any idea where the wiring is for the for the lights that are out is? or what color they are? Where should i start with this. i want to drive my car but i can't until i get this fixed.
Thanks
Tom
P.S. sorry for being so long

 

fuse

 

i checked all the fuses, plus some of the working lights would be out if the fuse was out. but thank you for the help.
thanks
Tom

 

i would check your tailight fuse again just to make sure. i had the same prob the other day. no parking lights, shifter light,dash lights, but the turn signals and hazzards work along with everything else. here, it was the tailight fuse.

 

did you try turning your headlight switch all the way to the left?

 

Yeah i did try that, but it is more than my dash lights that are messed up. i figured out that i have a ahort somewhere. i was looking at the wiring diagram and noticed that the tail lights, parking lights, and of course dash lights are run throught the light switch. the lights that are working also run through there but are on another part of the switch. so i am going to see if the switch is bad.
Anymore ideas would be much appreciated.
Thanks
Tom

[This message has been edited by Zio (edited May 02, 2001).]

 

light bulbs in the dash

 

No it is not just my bulbs in the dash. none of my running lights work (parking lights, liscence plate lights, rear ttail lights) but my head lights, break lights and turn signals work. i am stumped.
thanks
Tom

 

Zio,

You might actually have two separate problems, not counting the "problem" of a home-made electrical harness. If you can post or email a schematic of the harness, I can help you. If not, you'll have a lot of tracing and troubleshooting ahead of you.

There is a dash instrument light dimmer module under the center dash extension, just below the radio and to the left of it. If you look closely in the photo, you'll be able to see the orange, orange/black, and pink wires there.



The wires connect to a module as described above. The module has a switching transistor that controls the lamp illumination, and teh transistor is biased (controlled) by the dimmer control in the headlight switch.



------------------
Later,
Vader
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"What a Day..."
Adobe Acrobat Reader

 

well guys thank you for all your help. i found out what the problem was tonight aster i ripped my whole dash apart. the previous owver took the radio out and put a plate to cover the hole. After testing the switch and reading the wiring diagram i realized that the switch was also hooked to the radio. i took the plate off and found that he cut all the plugs off the end of the wires. the end of the wires were bare and they were all taped together. so they were shorting each other out. for the mean time (until i put my radio in) i just cut and taped the end of the wire.
thanks guys
Tom