Lighting problem

[M0nkeyMark]

anyone know what the orange wire is called or labeled? thanks for the amazing rewiring guide adam! starting to disassemble everything right now.

[Nexsys]

Not a problem, i already answer your pm, but also for reference to anyone else, the orange wire from the cd deck is called the "illumination" or "illum" or "ill+", essentially for the lighting. This is the wire in all stereos made after 1986 that youll want.

[MidnightSkyline]

i know this is an old forum, but has anyone figured out the problem? my tailights wont turn on but my head light and other lights work!

[bellis_GTR]

It ended up being my light switch assembly. It was all melted and black inside. I replaced the whole switch with everything in it and re did the wiring. Everything has been good since. I still dont know why it happened tho. But when I got my HIDs this happened. They worked for about 2 weeks. Then drivers side blew out and only flashed. After that nothing worked.

[fast_freddie]

I have done a lot of wiring and ended up tracing thru the entire headlight crt. It seems that the headlight switch is a weak point in the system. Some members have done a DRL mod which on paper looks good but for some reason causes this switch to fail. Power comes from this switch and goes down to the HI/Low switch at the steering column, all headlights both hi and low beams can be tested from this point. You can also test for power coming from the headlight switch to this switch as well, at least this will let you know where a problem might exist. Beware of the cheap HID's as my experience has lead me to rip most of them out. Usually they work for a month or so and then one decides to work intermit, turning on and off, went thru 6 different modules to finally get one to work. The skylines use direct wiring thru the switches so you can overload them quite easily, you can also test the hi beams by bypassing the relay in the engine bay. Sorry I missed your thread earlier might have been able to help you trace wiring.

[bellis_GTR]

Yeah I was definitely thinking the switch was getting overloaded. It looked like a mini fire broke out inside the switch lol.

This set up was not designed to be on all the time I think. Since theres no DRL or auto setting. But then again I see guys with headlights tails on during the day. As for the HIDs I might of just had a shyte set. Or I touched the bulb to much. (made sure I didn't lol) But my friend also got the same brand HIDs. He put those in an H4 headlight, and have been working great ever since.

Another thing. When I bought the car, the Hi beams never worked. I was told it was an wiring issue in the steering column. Seemed like too much work to check out atm. No problem. I know now! Do you think you could get a diagram for the Hi beams? I would like everything to be done right this time. I have the service manual, but haven't checked to see if the diagrams in there yet.

Thanks!

[fast_freddie]

your right you can turn on the high and low beams by getting a positive wire at touching the right wires, can send you some pics of the harness. With a test light you can check for power from the headlight switch and see if your hi/low switch works, you can also trigger the hi beam relay from the column as well, the testing only takes about 5 min. the longest part is taking the plastic parts off the column. You can test the hi beams from the engine bay to see if the lights work, and then back track to the steering column and then test the relay.