American Clipper Owners Club

Tech Forum => Tech Forum => Topic started by: Andy Illes on September 22, 2004, 02:57:37 PM

Title: HELP!!!! Clearance light wiring
Post by: Andy Illes on September 22, 2004, 02:57:37 PM
Hi all.   I finally got around to trying to install the new clearance lights Mel sent.  They all have a green and a white wire..... BOTH of mine are hot!!  (DUH... wonder why they didn't work?!?!?)   One should be a ground, not hot.   Where does that circuit start and end?????   I'm heading back to FL this weekend and would really like to fix it.

Thanx, Andy
Title: HELP!!!! Clearance light wiring
Post by: handyman on September 22, 2004, 03:55:26 PM
Andy where do you want to start in the dash over the cab under the bathroom floor heven only knows where there wired togather are they all wired hot ? Id start at the tail lights and under the back of the house you might get lucky
Title: HELP!!!! Clearance light wiring
Post by: bigray on September 22, 2004, 06:31:07 PM
I'm about to do the same things. One of the guys that painted my Clipper a couple of weeks ago yanked the wires for a couple of my clearance lights.  He only snatched out the two right in front of the driver before I stopped him.

While installing the other lights, it appeared the the wires were simply routed through the wholes. Can anyone confirm this. I thought that I was going to have to remove the paneling in the cabover to reinstall the wires. But like I said, I think the wires are just ropped through the wholes for the lights. This would make replacing the wire much easier.
Title: HELP!!!! Clearance light wiring
Post by: aliendude on September 24, 2004, 06:16:31 AM
Mine don't work either......   It's on my list of things to do.  
There are several wires behind the facia panel below the overhead
compartment.    I was going to start there.
Title: HELP!!!! Clearance light wiring
Post by: Andy Illes on September 24, 2004, 08:53:12 AM
A-Dude.... do you remember if those were a green and white pair?
Title: HELP!!!! Clearance light wiring
Post by: bigray on September 24, 2004, 09:14:19 AM
On mine there are two white and two green for the lights on the front and back of the coach. However, the ones on the sides of the couch have one green and one white. The green is hot and the white is ground.

I think the reason there are two wire of each is because it is connecting it to the next light. I haven't run any continuity test or anything to be sure. The ones that I connected work fine.

As I said earlier this knucklehead snatch the wiring for two of the lights so I have to figure that out.

In addition, when I turn the headlight on, my right signal indicator on my dash stays lite. I don't know what is causing it. I checked al the connection and everything seems okay. This weekend I'm hoping to find time to troubleshoot.
Title: HELP!!!! Clearance light wiring
Post by: aliendude on September 24, 2004, 02:26:46 PM
If I turn on my running lights my left turn signal on the dash stays lit.... I think it is the Headlight switch.    I've seen this before.  

Behind the overhead facia there are several wires.    Red, Green, and
white....and blue. ( I think ).
I'm not at home to go look at it right now.
Title: HELP!!!! Clearance light wiring
Post by: Andy Illes on September 29, 2004, 12:19:54 PM
Hi all.  As I wrote in another post, I found my problem.  The friend who rewired my fried dash harness had erroneously connected the white to a hot feed behind the dash, instead of to ground.  Thankfully it didn't hurt anything with the fiberglass body, except the lights of course won't work that way.

There's one white and one green that go from behind the dash and up the driver's side pillar to above the driver's seat.  There's a bird's-nest of white/green (and other) wires up there.  One w/g pair goes to the front lights, and another pair each up and back to feed each side.  The bottom lights feed from the top ones, so that's why you're seeing 2 pairs in the top ones.... one incoming feed, another going to the lower lights.... that's why the bottom ones only have the one pair.

There are TWO turn signal flashers... not sure why... but if either one is bad, the whole flasher/signal system will act goofy.  Only a couple bucks, so I'd suggest just changing both and see if that fixes it.... it should.  Mine were hanging loose, so I can't help with where you're supposed to find them.  Just drop the speedo cluster and see what you can see.
Title: The fix
Post by: Andy Illes on October 14, 2004, 10:04:39 AM
I had posted this in another thread, but am getting emails about it, so I'll "re-post" here.

It did turn out to be a ground problem, as a mechanic found, but not the one I thought I fixed.  It was a loose ground wire in the back.  The "ground" I thought I had connected to was a little metal bracket, which I didn't notice screwed to a plastic piece, not the body.. I just didn't check... duh.  

Anyway, because the circuit ground wasn't good, the bulbs "back-feed" 12v to the ground wire, which is why I found both wires hot, and it can also create confusing, intermittent problems with anything else running off the same circuit in the headlamp switch, except the headlights (because they're on a separate circuit inside the switch).

Hope this helps.  Andy