Goofy electrical problem please help i suck at electrical stuff
 

Hey guys so today I was driving my Dart and i noticed my amp guage was reading +40 for 2 miles and i look in the car check everything and nothin was on then boom all of a sudden not touching it but the left hand turn signal came on solid not flashing and only the front left driving light and fender light :( so i kept driving playin with it and nothin, took it home turned the turn signal on and off to try to cycle it but tnothin so my last resort due to me having to drive this car everyday is i unplugged the front fender indicator and front left driving light. so now after that, i am playin with the turn signal lever and all of a sudden the right one started to work (never worked when i bought this car) and now its flashing but turns off. And traced it by the clicking noise under the dash and unplugged it (passenger side) and now it stays off so that narrows that flasher out of the question. But does this particular model have two flasher units under the dash?? because i found another one under the driver side fuse box. So i went ahead and unplugged that too and plugged the lights back in but they stay on still? After unplugging the lights (driver side front) and unplugging the possible 2nd flasher i played with the turn signal again and now only the back driver side light comes on solid so i am baffled to what is wrong. Pretty much with the lights not turning off its draining my battery and none of these lights have ever worked besides the front driver lights and headlights and rear lights

My guess is that you had a big short somewhere, quite possibly related to the alternator which may have been overcharging. It sounds to me like what might have happened is that a/ some wire(s) got hot. All auto wiring is "cheap" so called "thermoplastic" insulation. This means that if it gets hot enough, the insulation melts. It's common in the case of some big short, for the wiring to melt the insulation from heating, and "weld" together inside the taped harness.

Did you smell anything when this was going on? Any smoke?

One thing you can do to start to narrow down the problem is by disconnecting things to troubleshoot. Normally, there's a connector somewhere in the vicinity of the left kick panel where you can disconnect the harness going to the rear. You can disconnect the steering column connector, and pull different fuses one at a time. Pull one thing at a time, see if the problem is "still there" and then connect that item back up.

"My Mopar" has wiring diagrams you can download, and this link below will give you access to a couple of complete factory manuals you can download.

http://www.forabodiesonly.com/mopar/...al%2C+download

Thanks man. I did smell somthin but its hard to say what it was for sure if it did i was under the dash looking at all the wires and no harness insulation looked burned or melted and no smoke. I did try the fuse box by taking one out at a time and that did not work. My guess maybe is the lights started working after i hit a pot hole the other night and it sat with the lights on overnight draining the battery and it was charging it back up with too many amps? Because it went right back to normal after those couple miles of 15 amps and the car ran fine. it was still charging normal after the problem

where is the steering column connector located? if i diconnected that it can solve the problem.

The steering column connector should be located at the steering column right above the bottom of the dashboard. Does your car have the ignition switch/key in the steering column? If so, then disconnecting this connector may disconnect the ignition switch. I'm not looking at a wiring diagram so, I don't know if there is a seperate connector for the ignition.

Good point that would not work I need it to drive haha. I have not touched the car today, just been bothered by it to much but since i have disconnected the possible shorted out wires via left fender indicator and driving light gets rid of my drianing battery problem for now until i can afford to fix it right im broke from not woking at my new job yet which starts tuesday :) I know its drivable for now so i guess for now see what happens

2 relays...one for the turn signals, one for the hazzards. USUALLY when a turn signal comes on and stays solid a bulb is burned out. Have you checked that?

j

Take a CLOSE look at the firewall connector. Unplug it and check it THOROUGHLY. Nine times out of ten this is where all Mopar electrical problems are. Between the firewall connector and the dash voltage regulator that's enough to make a sane man crazy. I bet dollars to doughnuts you're gonna fine some melting has gone on in that connector.

I agree...one turn signal flasher...one hazard flasher...could be as simple as a burned out bulb and or faulty turnsignal switch in the steering column

Ill check the harness into the firewall. But ill take the bulbs out and check them as well, thanks for all the help guys i appreciate it! I think its the firewall connector as well now but which one? there are three.

Alrigty so being eager to find out if the fire wall connector fried its not perfectly fine. I traced my driving light wire back to the fire wall and it was the connector closest to the wiper motor and being very careful with the tabs on the connector praying they would not snap on the connector did not lol. so that rules out the connector, maybe a short under the dash from that harness? i was under there yesterday and the white connectors were fine i checked already, so now i am assuming a bad bulb or steering column switch