Thinking about the short on both sides of the instrument cluster light bulb socket, I looked in the wiring diagram on page 50-41, found on connector ME-01, pin 7 (Illumination) there's a Red/Green wire. Looking at the ME connector to the right, where it connects to the FEM-01 connector, it looks like the wire color changes from Red/Green to Brown/White. Is this correct? That's where I'd need to follow, looking for a short to ground?

I can't figure out from the wiring diagram, where this Brown/White wire goes to. FEM-01 does appear to be at the right kick-panel of the passenger side according to the picture on page 50-20. If this is actually the case, I'll try and disconnect whatever that connector goes to and see if the short is gone or not. If the short is gone after unplugging that connector, the short must be in that device or further downstream. If the short is still there, then the short is in that section of wiring harness? Do I have this right?

Or, please correct me.

 

The round plug on the rear of the meter cluster which houses the Red/Green wire runs to the front harness where the meter harness mates w/the front harness. It's actually called FME (front and meter) and not FEM (front and emission). The R/G wire goes from the front harness to the R/G wire of the headlight switch harness.

 

personally i'd just replace the switch.

you added power and verified that the circuit works and isn't shorting out the power supply you are jumpering it with, if there was a short then you'd be frying wires trying to apply power to the tail parking lights. if they're still in circuit you should be getting lights on all 4 corners of the car, telling me there is no short, in fact you should even get dash lights too.

even if you get voltage through the switch it wouldn't mean anything, apply that power to the parking light circuit and watch it drop like a rock to little or no volts, meaning there is no amps through the switch to power the lights. aka, faulty switch relay, the switch won't always burn the traces on the board, in fact most of the switches i have appear totally fine but the relays are toast.

the same issue applies to the wiper switch, super common failure point.

 

We did another test today. The light switch appears to be OK.

We ran a new 12V power wire back to the Red/Green wire on the round white connector at the back of the dash and injected 12V there. The taillights came on, the glovebox and cigarette lighter lights came on. There was also a chirping sound going the entire time we had the wire connector.

I disconnected the wire and wanted to try it again...and couldn't get it to do the same thing again so we ran a 12V power wire back to the taillights and injected 12V there. The taillights came on, the glovebox and cigarette lighter lights came on. We plugged the round dash connectors in. The dash lights came on. We adjusted the instrument light brightness **** and it did dim the instrument lights. There was also a chirping sound going the entire time we had the wire connector.

Everything seemed to work OK with the 12V applied this way. We pulled the 7.5A room fuse and everything stayed on, which I guess makes sense since we put the power on the other side of the fuse.

But.....what does this tell me? Where is the problem? I'm still stumped.

 

The purpose of the R/G wire is to supply voltage to various lights and either the switch is supplying this voltage or it is not. The voltage should appear w/the headlight switch turned to either of the two positions. As previously stated, the switch is problematic.

 

We did replace the headlight switch and it fixed the problem with the dash/tail/parking lights.
Thanks for the help