Brake lite and turn signal problem

[WinniJim]

Due to an illnes, our 1998 Winnebago Adventurer WQ32 on a 1999 Ford F53 chassis, V-10 Triton has been in mothballs for 3 years. In my efforts to reactivate it I have had light problems. On initial start up I had only front parking lights and running lights.

After some fruitless efforts, I turned the light switch off and on many times and suddenly the head lights started to work, also the rear running lights and the bright and dim switch works properly as does the back up lights,

However I still have no rear parking lights, brake lights, turn signals or emergency flashers. I have found all of the grounds, cleaned them well and everywhere I test the green ground wires to the chassis I get zero ohms. I checked the grounds on the brake light sockets and they are good.

I have checked all of the fuses several times and all of the relays and the fuses are all good and the relays work properly on my work bench. I have installed a new brake switch and a new heavy duty flasher.

I have checked all of the wiring harnesses as best I can for rodent damage and have found none.

If anyone has any suggestions as to what I might look for, please let me know. I have yet to remove the light switch and check it out as I can't figure out how to remove it.

Thanks a lot for reading this and I will truely appreciate any suggestion anyone might have.

Jim Lawson

[trackman]

After sitting for that long I would bet the sockets for the bulbs in all the areas you mentioned are corroded or near corroded. To be sure you will have to check the housings.

[WinniJim]

I checked all the sockets and cleaned the contacts and also cleaned the contacts on the bulbs.

Jim

[garykk]

If everything is working up front and only the rear lights are out I would suspect a bad connection or break in the wiring...double check the wires running along the chassis. Sometimes there are several connections depending on the length of the chassis. If you have a test light for 12volt with the sharp point you can check along the harness from front to rear and pinpoint the break..

[FIRE UP]

WinneJim,
Well Sir, it seems you've done some pretty good investigation and, about the only suggestion I might make is, check into the "flasher switch" on the steering wheel. On our '99 Bounder with the F-53 Chassis, I'd have a recurring problem with the flashers. It seems the flasher switch, which has interconnections with the brake light wires on some models, gets a bit corroded in its connections. Every once in a while I'd have to "work" that four-way flasher switch in and out a dozen times and, that would get things to working correctly.

Certainly not guarantying this is your problem but, it's certainly one more set of connections that may or may not have influence on your issues. If you pull a marker light, anywhere in the marker/tail light circuit, and check for voltage, do you get ANYTHING? Here's something I might do if I were in your shoes. I'd pull say, a tail light bulb or, at the least get to the power wire that goes to a tail light bulb(marker not brake) and feed it 12V from an alternate source. Make sure you've got a good ground too.

Now, if you feed that wire with 12V, and the other tail lights light up, then, you know the wiring is good back there. And all that's needed is to find where the break down is. Probably not telling you much. It seems by working the headlight switch, you've cleared up some of your issues. Your brake lights, turn signals, and four way flashers all are interconnected in the steering column via the turn signal switch/lever. Sometimes the four ways are independent but, many times they are effected by the condition of that switch in the column.

By lack of use, that turn signal lever/switch might have issues too. Try just moving it from left turn to right turn a few zillion times to maybe make better contacts in that area. Just some suggestions to maybe help here. Let us know what you find out if it gets cured.
Scott