Tail lights inoperational

[Novice_cardude]

Well, I like to consider myself pretty handy when it comes to tracking down trivial things and taking care of them. So this morning on the way to work when my gauge backlight died, I thought nothing of it... I'd just rip out the cluster and replace the backlight. None of the other lights on the dash were working either, so I figured it might be a fuse or a bulb in series that had failed.

When i got home I decided to test a few things...

Come to find out my tail lights weren't working either. I looked at the wiring diagram and found that these are on the same circuit. I double checked the fuse, even swapping it with another 15a fuse in the junction block. No result. I took off the trim for the driver's side to get to the relays, and swapped the defogger relay and the tail light relay. Nothing.

As it stands I have no tail lamps, no daytime running lamps, but my headlamps and signals are working great. When i get a chance i'm going to hit it with my multimeter and see what I can find out. I've only found a couple other people who had similar problems. One turned out to be the little yellow box that detects circuit faults for the brake lamp failure light, and the other was a bad bulb socket for one of the corner lamps.

I can't find any link to either of those through the circuit i'm seeing, but I guess i'll have to dig further.

Meantime I guess I gotta drive careful so I don't get a ticket for this ... it's my only form of transportation.

Maybe i'll just ride the brakes on the way to work. :P

[Novice_cardude]

I found the problem ... it was the switch. Went through a rather elaborate diagnostics procedure, bypassed a couple relays, then the switch and boom! I didn't want to spend $100 on a new switch, so I just wired in a radio shack switch that grounds the positive wire going to the switch. cost me $12 and an hour of time.

When I can afford it i'll replace the switch to keep the clean look, but until then i'll stick with my cheapo fix.