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guage lights don't work

Posted: Sat Dec 18, 2004 5:41 am
by hitechsportguy8922
Recently I re wired my fog lights so that they came on when the parking lights were on. This went well... except now the interior lights... the radio lights, the guage lights and the temperature control lights do not come on. The car is a 97 and all of the fuses, both inside and under the hood are intact. any ideas what this could be? need help soon... very hard to drive at night.

Posted: Sat Dec 18, 2004 7:34 am
by evolutionmovement
You must have pulled a common wire or connector somewhere. The fog lights shouldn't be related. Did you fiddle under the dash? The parking lights still work?

Steve

Posted: Sat Dec 18, 2004 3:36 pm
by vrg3
You don't say what car you have... Most of us here aren't familiar with any stock fog light wiring because our cars didn't have a fog light option. But how did you accomplish this wiring change?

Cuz if you were just randomly probing until you found a wire that was hot when the parking lights were on, you might have actually gotten a dash illumination wire instead of a parking light wire. And if you draw any significant current from that wire, the fuse will pop, for good reason.

Is your dash illumination fuse blown?

Posted: Sat Dec 18, 2004 7:51 pm
by hitechsportguy8922
I have a 1997 legacy outback. The parking lights and all exterior lights function normally. The fuses are all good. none appear to be blown... this is why I'm so stumped... any ideas?

Posted: Sat Dec 18, 2004 8:14 pm
by vrg3
vrg3 wrote:But how did you accomplish this wiring change?
If you can explain more about the process you went through maybe we can help you identify what could have gone wrong.

Depending on how you did this, you may have damaged the illumination control unit. It's a little box mounted behind the console to the right of the stereo.

Posted: Mon Dec 20, 2004 9:49 pm
by tris91ricer
Yup, yup. I have experience with this Illumination control unit, and i did the same thing you did --wired fogs to the parking lights. You shorted something hardcore, and it probably blew that little unit. Goto a JY and grab another one, they're small, should be cheap.