no power to tail lights?

[imaiami]

howdy,
I'm new to this 93 turbo legacy wagon I"ve got. got her running well and such, but still have no tail lights when the headlights come on.
I've got brake lights, blinkers, hazards, and reverse lights, but no driving lights.
I can't find any fuses correlating to them specifically, nor any fuses blown. Both the headlight relays work fine too if they control the tails also.
bulbs are fine, so I got to multimetering and have no power in this circuit to the rear.
I've also found wiring diagrams on here for the headlights and for a 90 legacy, but sh#$t, can't find anything for the rears.
looking to see if anyone has run into the same problem or if they know what I'm missing.
I'd really like to fix this and keep her all oem rather than splicing power from the headlamps to the tails. (which I'm doing at the moment, so I don't have to drag the brake at night)
thanks,
dustin

[imaiami]

so,
after more playing and multimetering,
randomly I have tail lights??????

I kept trying the parking lights and tinkering, then all of a sudden I have parking lights, turn off the switch and I have the rear tails. I dunno.........glad its fixed tho

[Legacy777]

Thanks for the update.

Sounds like there may have been a lose connector or something up with the wiring.

[subydaddy]

Your parking light switch on top of your steering column may have a poor connection. Power runs through that for your parking lights, so if anything goes wrong with the connection at the switch the parking lights won't come on.

There are three red wires under the dash that are for that switch. If your problems come back you could try connecting two of those together to see if that solves your problem.

I can't remember which two you need to connect but if you'd like I can check. From memory I think the colors are RED, RED/WHITE, and RED/YELLOW. They go to a white/clear harness and are seperate from the other wires in the harness.

I think it's RED/WHITE and RED you'll need to connect, but don't quote me.

[imaiami]

welp the problem resurfaced and come to find there were more replies on this thread.

I crossed the wires like mentioned by subydady but no cigar. one is constant power, red/ yel, then the middle red one with power lit the interior lights, but the red/ grn didn't give any dice to the tail lights.....

any other ideas out there as to where the problem could lie before I go diagnosing crazy again
thanks,
dustin

[subydaddy]

Is it only the rear tail lights?

Do your brake/reverse/turn signal lights still work?

[vrg3]

Yeah, give us more specific information: Do the sidemarkers, front parking lights, and/or rear license plate lights turn on when you turn on the headlights? And when the car is turned off, do the taillights (and sidemarkers, parking lights, and license plate lights) turn on if you turn on the switch on top of the steering column?

I don't know if you found the right wires under the dash. I would look for a 11-pin connector coming down from the steering column. The connector on the car side is black; I don't remember what color the connector on the steering column side is.

The car-side connector looks something like this:

Code: Select all

 _________    ______ 
/        | | |      \
| 1  2  3|_|_|4  5  |
| 6  7  8  9  10 11 |
|___________________|

Pin 11 has a red/black wire. This is the one that needs to be powered for the taillights (and parking lights, and sidemarkers, and license plate lights) to turn on.

When the switch on top of the steering column is in the "off" position, it connects that pin to pin 10, with a black/red wire. That wire goes to the tail/illumination relay in the fuse box under the dash.

So you could try connecting those two to see if that makes the parking lights work.

But I would first check the tail/illumination relay. At the top of the under-dash fuse box there are three rectangular plastic relays above the fuses. and above the electrical connectors (but still on the fuse box itself). The middle one is the one you're concerned with. The one closest to the back of the car is for the defroster and the one closest to the front of the car is for the fan. All three of them are the same, though, so you can just swap them around to test.

[imaiami]

ah yes, more info........

the clip I spliced up was the one that also had everything to the headlight switch, so I assume it was the correct one. same as you showed also......
there is another clip going to the column with the same clip, but has two clear/white connectors while the one I tinkered with has the black chassis connector.
(and by the way, I tried to get to the switch by removing all the pannels around the column thinking it was a removable switch or what not....that was a waste of time since the clip is easily accessable above the lower kick pannel )
I have brake lights, blinkers, reverse lights. but no front drivers, rear drivers, nor license plate light.

I looked to the fuse box/ relay pannel and have 4 relays in a row closest to the engine (labeled a/c relay x4) and two rearward lined perpendicular (H/L relay x2). one of the set of H/L relays is for the headlights, couldn't pinpoint the other one. But I did solder the wires back together and played with all the relays moving em around and got nothing while playing with the switch. No more time to tinker today, but hopefully this helps the knowing chime with some more infos.
Which is all very much appreciated and I thankyou all for the time and help you give

[vrg3]

Oh. Hmm. Why were your wire colors different from the ones I mention?

Anyhow, I still think the tail/illumination relay is a likely suspect. It sounds like you were checking the fuse box under the hood. There's another fuse box -- one inside the car, kind of by the dead pedal. There's a little black cover over the fuses, and above the fuses there are a few electrical connectors, and the relays are above those.

[imaiami]

yup, I totally had the wrong relays, buttttt after swapping those around and what not still no dice. Hopefully today I get some time to play some multimeter chasing games and see where my power is .....
thanks again....

[imaiami]

well could have sworn I checked the fuses multiple times and tail clearance was good. So I go out tonight trying to verify fuse number 5 on the f/b fuse box (fb 33/34) to splice in power there to get some driving lights, which I had thought was illum (I couldn't find for the life of me the fuses numbered anywhere, but it made sense to be a number 5 how the cover was labeled), but while searching I found the tail clearance fuse with the most miniscule imperfection that I must have missed, and whaddya know. a flippin fuse was the problem all along.

I am beginning to really frustrate myself missing the simplest of fixes and overcomplicating things x10......
thanks again for all the help.....

[vrg3]

Haha! Well, I'm glad you found the problem finally.

Yeah, the fuses aren't actually numbered on the label or anything... This is how it's laid out though: http://surrealmirage.com/vrg3/fuses/

[Legacy777]

These scans from the owner's manual also list the fuse numbers and what's on them.

http://www.main.experiencetherave.com/s ... ns/118.jpg
http://www.main.experiencetherave.com/s ... ns/119.jpg