I have tried searching and have not found anything that sounds like my problem.

I have a 2001 Ford Explorer Sport, 2 door, V6. Everything had been working fine but now I have no parking lights, license plate or instrument cluster lights. All other lights and controls seem to be working.

I visually removed and checked all fuses - no fuses appear to be blown.
In the internal fuse box I pulled fuse 5 (parking lights) and checked for power. I have 13 V on the right side of the fuse, with the fuse removed.
I swapped in another 15A fuse into position 5 - still no lights.

If I leave the parking light switch (first position) on I hear the Ding,Ding,Ding reminder that the parking lights are on - even though they are not, I take this to mean that the switch is working.
If I turn the light switch to the second position then the instrument dimmer light brings on the dome light - light above the rear view mirror. Dimmer all the way off will turn off the dome light.

I don't suppose this is relevant but the 4x4 control module has failed and is disconnected. It failed a year ago and has been disconnected for a year. I opened up the 4x4 control motor on the crank case and manually set permanent 4 wheel drive. I found I had no 4 wheel drive only after burying it up to the rear axle in sand! I tried an ebay ECM but it did not fix the 4x4 problem.

I hope someone here can share the schematic for park / instrument lights.
At some point I am going to want to be able to drive in the dark again.
Thanks.

 

Autozone has some pretty good diagrams for your vehicle. Here's a couple.

 

Thank you for the diagrams.

I thought the 2 door Sport was closer to the Sport Trac.
I thought the Mountaineer was based on the 4 door Explorer.

I will get it apart and see if I can follow the colored wiring.

I had a look at Autozone and found some high level self help guides but nothing so detailed as a wiring diagram.
May I ask your secret, how do you access the detailed wiring schematics?
Do you have access to the autozone pro content of their website?

Thanks for sharing these so I can try to figure out where the failure / open circuit is.

 

First you have to register. I have never had any negative affects from registering with with them.

You plug in your vehicle at the top, and once it's loaded in, go over to the right side and click on "repair help". Then click on "vehicle repair guides". You will then find a list for the vehicle you have loaded in, and among the list are "wiring diagrams". On some of the older vehicles you have to click on "chassis electrical" and then look at the bottom of that list for "wiring diagrams".

Usually the older diagrams are not that good. Starting around 2000 they used better diagrams, they look like they are directly from the Ford dvd repair manual.

 

Got it - thanks - this is perfect.
The diagrams show the fuses ligning up with what I see in the owners manual - great.

Well the fault developed yesterday - it went away.
This confirms my suspicion that it is a loose wire / open circuit causing the parking lights and interior dimmed lights to go out.

I can't fix what isn't broken, but when it fails again then I will know where to go for wiring diagrams.

Thanks so much for your help.

 

http://repairguide.autozone.com/znet...3f8023cef8.gif

This schematic shows it perfectly and explains all the symptoms.
The light switch works, the reminder says the switch is on.
The light switch calls the park relay which switches power to the park lights and dimmer. I bet the other feed is the license plate lights.
I rotated relays so I doubt its a bad relay, somewhere between Fuse 5, the relay and out to the lights must be an intermittent connection.

Thanks for sharing and showing me the light.