Tail lights not working, brake lights and turn signals are working

[Inter]

Hey guys I noticed last night that my night time running lights on my Valenti tails stopped working.. what I thought was just the tail-light crapping out turned to lead me down a rabbit hole I know nothing of. Here's the story:

At the same time my DRLs on my Spec-d headlights stopped working as well. So this morning I took out the Valenti's, put the stocks on.. still nothing. They both didn't work, same thing, brake lights and turn signals work fine. So next I checked the fuses, the fuse 4 on the inside panel was blown. 5 for the DRLs was not blown which I found strange since the DRL doesn't work either. So I drove my angry ass to auto-zone, bought more 10a fuses and changed them. But...fuse 4 blew again.. and again.. and again. Every time I changed it to a new one, tried to turn the lights on it blew instantly, I even tried putting the stock tails back on .. still blew. I know very little about wiring and I'm so stumped. I checked my wiring from the Spec-d headlights and made sure no exposed wiring was fouling and touching any metal in the engine bay.. nothing wrong there. I unplugged the main headlight harness from the car and reset the battery, still to no avail. I really want to avoid taking it to the shop... my only thought is that theres a really huge chance theres a bad ground, so maybe if someone knows a point where the ground can fail often that would be awesome. Any suggestions or help would be super appreciated.


UPDATE : Checked trunk dome lighting for any bad wires, nothing out of order there.. Removed license plate lights and put a new fuse in, tried again, still blew the fuse.

[humfrz]

Well now, Inter, it's quite obvious that your car has an electrical short somewhere in the system. I would start looking at or around those lighting fixtures that you have been messing with. You may find an electrical diagram (found somewhere on this forum) helpful.

What Bubba does is to jump across the fuse block that keeps blowing with a piece of #9 wire, then look around the car for sparks and or burning wire. NO, DON'T DO THAT!

[sharpsicle]

Narrow down the short. Unplug the headlights and taillights, replace the fuse, then plug them in one by one until it blows. That will tell you which headlight/taillight to look at specifically.

If you unplug them all, and it still blows, then you've got an issue with the car wiring.

[Inter]

Originally Posted by humfrz

Well now, Inter, it's quite obvious that your car has an electrical short somewhere in the system. I would start looking at or around those lighting fixtures that you have been messing with. You may find an electrical diagram (found somewhere on this forum) helpful.

What Bubba does is to jump across the fuse block that keeps blowing with a piece of #9 wire, then look around the car for sparks and or burning wire. NO, DON'T DO THAT!

Yeah I've been fiddling with them and trying different things all day... Had to have gone through at least 20 fuses...

[Inter]

Originally Posted by sharpsicle

Narrow down the short. Unplug the headlights and taillights, replace the fuse, then plug them in one by one until it blows. That will tell you which headlight/taillight to look at specifically.

If you unplug them all, and it still blows, then you've got an issue with the car wiring.

I don't remember if I unplugged all 4 headlights and tail lights and then tried it, that's something I'll have to redo tomorrow..

[Romansssee]

Were you able to fix them? I’m currently having the same freakin problem, so anything you found out would help a lot

[soundman98]

The next step is to start unplugging harnesses. There's a short somewhere, just need to narrow down if it's in front or back.

Always start with the parts that have been modded or fiddled with, then move on to unplugging car harnesses

[Tcoat]

Originally Posted by Romansssee

Were you able to fix them? I’m currently having the same freakin problem, so anything you found out would help a lot

He hasn’t been here for a year so maybe he burned his car up by just throwing fuses at it.
As has been said if you blow a fuse it means in all probability you have a dead short someplace. They can be a bitch to find. If you recently changed or worked on something start there and look for pinched or cut wires. The hard part is it can be anywhere in the length of the car!

[Romansssee]

Thank you bro, appreciate your help

[amaryeg]

you fix ur tail lights???

[SeriesB]

My problem was the sidemarker wires were all screwed up and the positive and negative cables were wrapped around each other. I had them disconnected because I have widebody fenders. Now it works perfectly fine.