98 Frontier parking light short?

jon_Gee · Dec 13th, 2004, 11:33 AM

Just picked up a 98 Frontier 4x4 King Cab w/KA24DE for $5500 with 75k miles. Looks like it had seen an accident in the past, but is mechanically good to go.

The downside is that while driving it from San Diego (purcahse location) to Tulsa, OK, I discovered that the taillight/corner lamp/dashboard light system is defunct.

I spent a few hours at a parts store in the desert somewhere between AZ and NM trying to figure the problem out, but was only able to rule out a few things. Here's a description of the problem:

1. The taillights, lic. plate lights, front corner markers, and dashboard lights (spedo, tach, gas, temp, HVAC system panel lights) do not light up when the headlight shaft is turned to the park or headlight position. The dashboard warning lights appear to be fine.

2. There is a fuse in the box under the hood marked 'tail.' If the headlight know is turned to PARK or ON, this fuse burns out immediately.

3. I have disconnected the plug under the rear of the truck carrying light signals from the front to the rear combination lamps, before the wires split to the various lighting components. I have also removed the front corner lamps, effectively removing all lighting components from this system except the dash lights. After these elements were disconnected, the 'tail' fuse would still immediately burn out when as described in #2.

4. With the truck in condition #3, I was able to light a test lamp by completing a circuit between the ground side of the 'tail' fuse and the positive battery terminal. This seems to vertify that there is a short somewhere between the 'tail' fuse's ground side and either one of the wires going to one of the corner or tail light components, or on the connection to the dashboard lighting system.

I'd like to hear anyone's thoughts on likely culprits or with similar experiences. My next course of action is planned to involve taking off (carefully!) the engine fuse panel and checking the underside for shorts, then the check each of the wires leading out of it from that "tail" fuse for a short. Anyone know if the dahboard is a more likely place for a problem, or if there are other elements in the system I haven't mentioned and might not realize connect to the parking lights?

Wayne64SS · Dec 13th, 2004, 12:51 PM

I would find out where the truck was hit most body guys suck at wiring and probably got a wire pinched or caught in the head of a bolt or screw. If thats not the case check the areas most commonly taken apart during repairs, such as at the bottom of the steering column where the headlight switch connects to teh harness

maybe somebody was in there with maybe a remote start or some senseless bullshit or maybe even was the victim of a hack mechanic. Those are the first basic steps i would take before getting into anythign too serious.

**88pathoffroad** · Dec 13th, 2004, 09:44 PM

Does the vehicle in question have trailer wiring installed?

jon_Gee · Dec 14th, 2004, 10:58 AM

I was able to fix the problem last night, but I'll post about it for furture search reference.

The try and isolate the problem, I took apart my engine fuse box to see where the 'tail' fuse split off to after leaving the fuse box. Unfortuantely, there was only one wire, which looked like it was headed to the cockpit of the vehicle.

Seeing this, I went and found the same colored wire was attached to the light control plug on the steering column. I disconnected my positive battery terminal and hooked up a long lead wire to it. I left the negative terminal grounded to the car. At the other end of the + lead wire, I had a trailer tail lamp to use as a test lamp for grounds. Since it had + battery supply on one end, if I took the loose wire and touched to ground, the circuit through the battery would be complete.

With the "tail" fuse and the light selector switch on the steering column disconnected, I took my positive lead and touched the wire coming to the light selector plug from the "tail" fuse. My indicator did not light up, indicating that there was not a leak to ground on that part of the circuit (purple wire I think). This was good.

I then touched another element of the switch block (these two would be connected when the parking lights were turned on, so I was just testing the other side of the switch for a ground leak). Here, my light came on. This vertified that the leak to ground was somewhere AFTER the switch, but before one of the elements in the parking light system. The wire for this part of the circuit is coded blue w/red stripe.

I then broke down my dashboard to look for all the places that would be lit by those blue/red wires. Since they all split off of the original wire leaving the light selector, it really didn't matter where the ground was, all elements would still fail since the current will follow the path of least resistance, and with no resistance load, the fuse would always burn out right away due to the increased current. I was breaking things down to look for any leak on the GROUND side of a dashboard element (since I had not dissconnected them yet like my taillights) or anything odd in general.

After vertifying the leak to ground in my HVAC lights, I took down the radio console, which also has a blue/red wire to light up the factory stereo buttons with the rest of the parking light system. A basic aftermarket cd player had been installed in this truck. As with most aftermarket stereos I know of, this signal was not used. When the car is on, the stereo is lit up regardless of the light selector position. The aftermarket wiring harness on the car side still had a lead connected to the blue/red side of the OEM plug, but it did not connect to anything on the stereo side of the aftermarket harness. The idiot who installed it didn't bother to tape this wire up, and it eventually had bumped up against the metal frame for the center console, and caused a short. I removed the radio, reconnected the fuse box, battery, exterior lights and selector switch....voilà! The parking light circuit is functional, and does not burn out any fuses.

Hope someone finds this useful someday!