Parking light problem for the electrical gurus

[kilodawg]

Okay I realized the other day that the front drivers side parking lights don't work.

I'm talking both drivers side front bulbs, the dual filament for the parking light function (the blinker function with the other filament in the bulb works fine) and the other single filament parking light in the second housing on the side.

During troubleshooting I disabled the front turn signal bulb with the blinker engaged. The single filament bulb in the other housing would blink to indicate a bulb failure in the turn signal I assume. This is the only time that bulb will come on but it does indicate (to me at least) that not only is the single filament bulb good but so are the contacts in that housing and the wiring that connects the two (front light) housings.

Additionally, the rears are fine which means the fuse is good and I checked it visually as well early on.

I disassembled the housing with the dual filament bulb and all the connections looked mated and okay. The rear housing looked fine as well. No corrosion, nothing obvious all very clean.

So it tells me that the problem is somewhere between the fuse box and the front housing or the front housing and ground but hey what do I know?

Any suggestions would be appreciated....

[kilodawg]

Didn't expect people to jump on this one but that doesn't mean I'm ready to give up on Pelican yet.

I did a little more exploring both with the search function and a multimeter.

The wires are per this picture I found posted a couple of years back



As you can see there are three connections to the turn signal bulb housing. The top one appears to be for parking light power. I assume this to be true because the gray/red wire appears to get routed out of the back of the turn signal housing and over to the adjacent parking light housing.

The center connection is ground which is also taken over to the adjacent housing.

The lower connector with the black/white wire seems to be power for the turn signal.

My multimeter would appear to confirm this. When I set it for a continuity check (ohms) taking one lead to the ground wire. I got continuity between the lower black/white wire and ground. I got nothing between the gray/red wire to ground.

What does this mean in terms of solving the problem? No clue..Just that it would appear to not be in the housing itself. Again please feel free to chime in with an assessment of whether my conclusions seem correct or not and where to go next???

Many thanks!

[kilodawg]

Also in looking at a wiring diagram it seems that both the black/white as well as the gray/red wires go pretty much straight back to the fuse panel. I've checked the connection points there and they look undisturbed from the factory with absolutely no corrosion evident. Brand new looking actually. In looking at the wiring diagram again it would also appear that since the rear parking lights work the light switch itself can be exonerated.

I also looked as best I could at the wire bundle that enters into the turn signal housing from the rear. It all looks undisturbed and the only connections to the wires are the tabs inside the housing itself???

More stumped than ever....

[3.2 CAB]

How long have you felt the need to talk amongst yourself?

Just kidding! I am surprised that nobody has responded yet. I do have one question, what car are we talking about here. The reason I ask, I have not found any "pink" color coded wire for the 911 models that I see that you have listed. Regardless of the color wire, I have found chafed parking/turn light wires that pass through the holes cut into the front tub sidewalls. They are all located in the smallish area from side to side where the factory jack normally is positioned. The wire grommet had been pulled/pushed out of the hole, and the rough edge of the interior of the hole, had rubbed into the wires, from normal driving vibration. Let me know which one of the cars it is, as I have schematics on about all of them. Sorry again about the joke.

[kilodawg]

Hey thanks,

It's the slant. I probably misspoke. The wiring diagram I'm looking at refers to it as a gray/red wire. It looks just like in the photo that I attached. I updated my words in the previous posts.

[javadog]

Okay,

No experience with the wiring on a slant-nose car but let me tell you how the wiring is run on a standard car. The harness comes from the fuse box, across the front of the tub and through the side wall and up into the headlight bucket. There are five wires. The colors vary from year to year but there are 4 power wires (low beam, high beam, parking lights, turn signal) and a ground. The wires related to the parking lights and turn signals end in a connector in the bucket. Another harness connects to this point, exits the headlight bucket and heads to the first light. The second light (on US cars, ROW cars don't have this light) is connected to the first, via termials on the back of the housing. Regardless of the colors in the main harness, the wires for the parking lights and turn signals will be a smaller gauge wire than that for the headlights.

Now, I have no idea how they ran the wires for a slant-nose, or if the car is factory or was modified from a standard car and the wiring changed to suit. What I would do is this; find the main harness and trace it to the first connectors. Check each wire for 12V here; if you have good voltage then make sure the ground is good. If all is well, continue tracing each wire to wherever it goes next. Check again. At the risk of overstating the obvious, you are losing 12V or ground at some point between the fusebox and the light bulb and you just need to keep checking until you find where. I wouldn't rule out the bulb, or he bulb holder, either.

Good luck,
JR

[boyt911sc]

Kilodawg,

Wanted to get involve but couldn't figure out the specific wiring diagram to use. It would be helpful if you let us know which one of your cars is having this electrical problem. Thanks.

Tony

[kilodawg]

Hey guys,

Once again it's the '88 Factory slant. All original.

This morning I took apart the turn signal again and carefully verified that there is no continuity between the incoming gray/red wire and ground. This is with the light housing completely disconnected. Everything else in that area checks out good. The tabs across the bulb housing are good as well as the feeds to the other side marker assembly. Just the power feed coming in checks bad. I'm confident if I can get that figured out the problem will be solved.

Next I went into the fuse box again and took out the wires to the fuse panel and they were seated properly and squeaky clean. So I guess that means I have to track down the location of the connection in the headlight housing (thanks JR) that would appear to be the only remaining connection in the circuit...I need to tread carefully there as I don't have any real good idea how these headlights are removed....

[kilodawg]

Call this thread closed!!!

Well I managed to take the headlight apart and unlike cars with upright (I prefer to call them high drag fenders ) slants don't take the parking and turn signal wiring to the headlights. Dead end.

So I decided to return to the front trunk and see what was behind the headlight mechanism covers that are located on either side of the front trunk on slant nose cars. Easy to remove but then I was confronted with a maze of wires and my hopes started to sink. However within a few seconds I saw a clear plastic connector holder and could see right away that one of the connectors inside had come undone. Sure enough a gray/red wire was connected to it. I seated it properly and the lights came on. I can't believe I actually learned enough in the process to really understand what I was doing....I think....

Thanks for the ideas. JR your help prompted me to look further. Much appreciated!

[dshepp806]

HEHEHEHE...kick butt!!

Best,