Lights Don’t Work

[Daryl]

It doesn’t scare me so much as I feel like I’m exhausting everyone’s patience asking for so much help due to my complete lack of electrical knowledge. Believe it or not, there ARE subjects I am knowledgeable about. Electrical just isn’t one of them!
So, not a COMPLETE idgit!

That being said, I’ll give it a try following your directions and let you know how it goes!

 

[ttocs]

I totally understand as I remember when I was scared of wiring before I started but this is a perfect exercise to learn how to use your meter - one of the most important tools in your tool box(cheap or expensive).

 

[weendoggy]

It doesn’t scare me so much as I feel like I’m exhausting everyone’s patience asking for so much help due to my complete lack of electrical knowledge. Believe it or not, there ARE subjects I knowledgeable about. Electrical just isn’t one of them!

That being said, I’ll give it a try following your directions and let you know how it goes!

Don't worry until the smoke comes out! That's when you know it's a problem. All kidding aside, your tester is fine, I use the same type. As mentioned, red is POS (not piece of $hit), and black is NEG or ground. Light circuits should be HOT (battery) even with key-off, but either way is fine. Battery lead to light switch should read 12v or better, with or without key-on. Ground the black lead to chassis and probe with the red lead. Too bad you're too far south, this is my specialty.

 

[badass98svt]

View attachment 47755
Or this, if it’s of any help??

That's for detecting power in home electrical wiring. 120/220. Not sure if they accurately detect down to 12v.

 

[Daryl]

Don't worry until the smoke comes out! That's when you know it's a problem. All kidding aside, your tester is fine, I use the same type. As mentioned, red is POS (not piece of $hit), and black is NEG or ground. Light circuits should be HOT (battery) even with key-off, but either way is fine. Battery lead to light switch should read 12v or better, with or without key-on. Ground the black lead to chassis and probe with the red lead. Too bad you're too far south, this is my specialty.

Yep, unfortunate for me :-(

 

[Daryl]

So, apparently I have power from the headlight switch and there are no faulty grounds or terminated wires/connections, including gnawed or eaten wires.
Could it be something with the ECU? I’m grabbing at straws due to my lack of knowledge in electrical matters, but if everything else is fine and as it was before the headlights and fog lights stopped working, I’m wondering if there’s something more of a control module (?) or some over riding component that’s the issue.

I guess I could have the headlights and fog lights required separately, but that seems like a last case scenario.

I do have a scheduled appointment with an auto electric specialist on the 1st, but still want to persue and investigate this in the meantime.

 

[ttocs]

after the headlight switch the power goes into the multifunction switch(turn sig/wipers/lo-high lights) to select the low/high lights. There are a lot of little moving parts in there and they are known to go bad. Find the wire that had power out at the other switch at the multifunction switch to confirm there is power there, and from there you should have power on either the low or the the high light wire but one wire should have 12v out with the lights on, 0v with the lights off.

 

[Daryl]

after the headlight switch the power goes into the multifunction switch(turn sig/wipers/lo-high lights) to select the low/high lights. There are a lot of little moving parts in there and they are known to go bad. Find the wire that had power out at the other switch at the multifunction switch to confirm there is power there, and from there you should have power on either the low or the the high light wire but one wire should have 12v out with the lights on, 0v with the lights off.

I checked out the multi-function switch at LMR ($12). Are there really moving parts?

 

[ttocs]

when mine died I was curious and took it apart. It is made up of 5-6 different switches and the contacts have some cam pieces in them due to the rotation and such so I was surprised to see there was more to it than I thought there would be.

 

[cobrajeff96]

When you see the MFS in-hand, you'll understand.

The headlights have zero interaction with ECU. In our SN95s, we have ECUs that only care about the engine unlike modern PCMs that tie into damn near everything in the car.

Not sure if you've already attempted, but probing for voltage at the actual headlamp connectors is super easy. One pin for 12v low beam, one pin for 12v high beam, and one pin for ground. So easy, a chimp could test it.

 

[Daryl]

Got a call from the auto electric specialist. Apparently there’s a wire that gets attached or spliced into the steering column that wasn’t connected or present. In any case, it’s all working now (headlights, fogs, etc).
Now I can swap in the new oil temp sending unit, as I didn’t want to risk complicating anything by messing with any more wires before the first matter was sorted.

 

[ttocs]

good to know there are still some techs that can do more than just hook up the computer, read a code and swap what it tells him to. I was reading ford is starting its techs at 120k and having a hard time finding people, not sure what to think about that...

 

[Daryl]

Good find. This guy is true to his reviews: does great work; goes above and beyond; very fair on price.

He went to the trouble of locating and downloading the year-correct wiring diagram and provided me with that * the “pinpoint” iterations he went through to diagnose and fix.

Spent the better part of 1/2 day but only charged me for 2 hours. I was expecting the car would be there for the week (I dropped it off Monday morning first thing) as 4 other cars showed up too! Kane had it done in a day and a half later… Tuesday midday.

I can’t help but think that something I unknowingly did with the steering column forked it up. But whatever the case, it’s fixed now and this whole thing is in the rear view!

 

[cobrajeff96]

So Circuit 195 (Tan/White) is the segment from the low current fuse panel beneath the dash straight to the headlamp switch. Looks like it got knocked loose of the protected bundle and chafed itself onto that dash frame. Yikes. Good thing we have fuses.

 

[joemomma]

Sounds like a solid dude! Glad you got it sorted.

 

[Daryl]

Sounds like a solid dude! Glad you got it sorted.

Truly is! Seems rare these days, but more common in smaller, rural towns away from city shops. Out here, word spreads quickly if you’re a sheister.

 

[badass98svt]

A diagram just like that would be found inside the EVTM manual that I mentioned to you a while back. They come in handy for sure, Daryl. Plus it's cool to have the original Ford literature from back in the 90s

 

[ttocs]

years ago I got the ford factory manuals that the dealers got rid of that has EVERYTHING you could ever want in it, the pages are starting to fall out of some now. I think it was a 6 book set, orange covers on the front/back.