I looked into my wiring problem and here's what's going on.

No dash lights at all
No Blinkers
No Driver side rear light/brake light
No switches move my back window (inside or key one, and motor works, i can move it with direct power)

I took out the rear drivers side light and cleaned up the grounds. I ran a power directly to my test light and found all the grounds in the harness back there, but i am not getting any power??? There are 2 sets of wires that run in the gate ( a yellow red and a brown i believe) and a white and black with female ends) the previous guy bypassed the safety switch so its just two from the motor and those four. When i tested them, the yellow red and brown were grounds, which would make one of the other two power? Also, i have no power at my switch ( or would they just terminate grounds there and have a solid power running???)

I'm not great with wiring stuff, but if anyone has a wiring diagram link or something that would be great. I looked in the haynes manual but didn't see anything for the rear windows.

Any help is greatly appreciated! Thank you.

 

check fuses' and relays?

 

checked the fuses, all appear to be good, didn't test to see if current is on both ends of them. never checked the relay(s). The wiring under the dash in kinda hob-jobbed, i have a relay with a blue and a white hanging by my brake release, and another rectangular white thingy. and for my brake lights, i have a power running from the back of my fuse box to a red wire on my brake light switch in order for them to receive power, and theres a red wire hanging from my parking brake as well, idk, it's messed up.

however, checking relays only really helps my blinker problem, thanks for the info on that though.

anyone else have any input??

 

The haynes manual has a wiring diagram in the back of the book to help you on the wiring issue. I am not sure what year you are working with but the newer models only add to the wiring headache. All I can say is look for power side of things until you find the problem area.

 

ah should have mentioned that, its a 78.

 

There are no relays in the tailgate window wiring. You are partially correct about the wiring in the tailgate. The wires that you found to BOTH be ground are... SOMETIMES. The switch wiring reverses the polarity of the current running through the window motor which gives you both UP and DOWN functions. I don't recall which is which but in the UP switch position, one of the two wires is hot and the other is ground. In the DOWN switch position the switch(es) reverse the polarity and run the motor the other direction.

As for the rest of the electrical issues, I'd follow alxsnmr's suggestion on the Haynes manual. I have never used anything else to diagnose electrical problems and I am used to later models with more sophisticated electrical systems.

 

i understand how it switches now, but what could be causing no power? also, in a freak of nature, when i ran power to one of the motor wires and grounded the other one, it would move the motor, and it ended up blowing the t/s fuse but it lit up the right tail light when it happened. IDK how it happened but it did, so im thinking things are messed up lol.

 

Ooh, i forgot to ask one thing, kind of a stupid one but i dont wanna break it. Is there some trick to getting the clip off of the speedo cable behind the guage? i removed one once on my 79 but it came off real easy, mine on my 78 is tough. I dont want it to break at all or anything.

 

I dont remember if those clip or screw on to the back of the spedometer.

 

ok, here's an update:

I fixed the blinker and dash light problems (blinkers dont show up on the dash, oh well) anyhow,all that is left is the left rear light assembly and power window. looking at how the wiring was in the haynes manual, it seems as if it runs to the back, then sort of splits to each side but there are some harnesses back there and some wires in a ball of electrical tape (lol) anyhow i am thinking that i should look by that harness and the ball and just see if some wires aren't connecting properly or are touching one another. and i also assume that both the window wiring and lights run back in the same area. Anyone agree as to if this might be the problem? everything else is working good now (aside from the alternatice power wire to the brake light switch, which i don't believe to be the problem)

as well, there was a bad fuse which i didn't notice that is labeled t/s that i replaced. not sure as to what it powered(tach was hooked into it though) i am thinking tailgate switch (lol, probably not, but hey...) it wasn't labeled as such in the haynes manual either. In there i believe it was labeled as something to do with some sort of engine doo-dad(not looking in the manual for the technical term)

thanks for the help so far, got me past some points (as easy as they were lol)