As Barrman noted earlier, check the wires coming through the firewall too. The harness could be chaffing there. Also at the high-beam switch. Power for the lights goes through all these areas, so all should be looked at if you suspect a short.
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As Barrman noted earlier, check the wires coming through the firewall too. The harness could be chaffing there. Also at the high-beam switch. Power for the lights goes through all these areas, so all should be looked at if you suspect a short.
One other place I have seen problems on MV lights is when the seals get compromised in the blackouts and allow water intrusion. A light assembly full of water, or a water/mud slurry will make for some nice electrical issues too.
Made some progress tonight. I checked the entire harness for bares and cleaned up anything that looked suspect. The one thing I found was a new blue wire coming from the back of the ignition switch and spliced into one wire of a pair that were taped together under the dash. It looked real ugly, they just wrapped the blue around a bare spot they made in the pair. Anyway, I cleaned all that up and left the blue wire unhooked. The lights stayed on longer than they ever had before and never went out. Yay.
Now, the problem is, it turns out the new blue wire someone had run was spliced into the wire going to the coil, so the truck won't start. Obviously, it needs to be hooked back up, but my question is where is this thing supposed to be hooked up when done right? The two wires that were taped together were the coil wire and the blower motor. They come through the firewall, run behind the steering wheel and then into a big ball of wires. That ball of wires then splits out to the dash lighting and gauges. I can see where the blower motor wire comes out and goes to the blower switch, but I don't see where the original coil wire comes from. Should it be in that big bundle? I suppose, I could separate the two wires and splice it in correctly, kind of like the PO had it before, but I'd like it to be done right, if possible.
Anybody got a pic of the back of their dash? Also, can I even get the dash off? I've got a hard top that's welded in and it looks like the top of the dash hooks up under the windshield so that even after the all the bolts are out you have to lay the windshield down.
Sorry for all the questions and ramblings, but this is one of the last things I need to fix. Thanks!!!
Ok, screw it, I went ahead and spliced into the coil/blower wire pair and put a good butt splice connector in. Everything works great and the lights are staying on. In addition, it feels like it's actually running better. They way the PO had it, there couldn't have been more than 2 or 3 strands of the coil wires connected. Now, with the butt splice connector, it seems like it's running better. Maybe placebo effect, who knows. I'm still not real clear on what was causing the breaker to trip in the switch, but oh well, it seems to be working.