On the way to work this morning, my Camaro sputtered and died on me. When I restarted it my interior lights were stuck on, and the blinkers/tails/headlights/parking lamps all flickered as if the 4 ways were on, but much faster. I also hear a clicking under the dash on the passenger side that coincides with the flashing. Sometimes it's a constant buzzing rather than a clicking. When the ignition is off, the lights stay on. I had to pull fuses so I didn't kill my battery when I parked it!

What happened, anybody seen this before?! It's a 1984 Berlinetta.

 

John in RI had mentioned to me before that the light module is located near the ECM, is that under the dash on the passenger side? I wonder if that's what's causing the problem...

 

Well, through searching for Light Module problems on Google, I found that my symptoms can be caused by a circuit breaker going bad within the light module. I just removed my light module from the vehicle and opened it, and the circuit breaker was a bit corroded and dirty. I'm cleaning the entire module up with contact cleaner and then I'll throw it back together and try it out.

 

Once I finished drying all of my contact cleaner off of the light module circuit board and cleaning up the circuit breaker, I fiddled with all of the relays ensuring they were making good contact and not corroded. They all seemed to be fine.

I really have no familiarity with electrical systems or trouble shooting, and I couldn't tell you how a circuit breaker operates, but I did figure out that the little metal tab on the circuit breaker was not making solid contact with the fixed metal portion of itself. It also appeared to have a corroded portion where the two points were supposed to make contact. I cleaned up both sides, and bent the metal tab so that it made a very solid contact and presto! Light module repaired!

I took the car for a test drive to see if any amount of uneven road or vibration would cause further problems with the circuit breaker, as well as cycling through the off/park lamp/headlight/high beam functions (as this appeared to cause the module to freak out prior to disassembling). No issues, it appears to be working as intended.