Exterior Lighting - Problems with Front Turn/Park Wiring Shorted & Burned, Repaired but...

[rloomis482]

4-15-13- Ha!!! Didn’t make it

Ok, So I didn’t get the post up on 4-15-13, as I explained in my other reply but here it is now.

1999 Prizm, Std. model I believe? (No power anything; Automatic Trans. has a rear window def!

So here’s the problem,

Been having a problem with the D.R.L. system as it would not turn off the parking lights after the key turned off, This was intermittent for about a week and stopped for a couple of weeks.

The only temporary solution we figured as to pull the Tail Fuse, In J-Block 2, after key off.

Now, Two days ago,
Lost the turn and Parking lamp on the front right corner, at the same time the wiper system went haywire while my daughter was coming home from school, and turned itself on and blew the fuse. She had to pull over and move the wipers down lower as she didn’t want them in the middle of the cycle the rest of the trip home.

So, I pulled the R.F. housing to replace the bulb (I figured it burnt out or contacts were bad) and found 2 of the 3 wires burned about 1 ½” from the light socket into the harness about 6-8” so badly there was no sheathing on them?

So I rewired all 3 back to where I figured the damaged and burned wire was good. Though I will admit the more I went into the harness it was still showing signs of over heated wiring, as it was quite difficult to separate the GRN/YEL from WHT/BLK, Hard sheathing, back to about 12” into the harness. Where I spliced in, Maybe further?

At this time,
I have a week turn light and blinks rapidly like a bulb again.
------ ------ ------ ------ ------

Here we go,
This is what I’ve done (diagnostic wise) to date, and observations of it....

1) Ran through the Exterior lights system check.
2) Following the repair procedure for (Park and tail lamps inoperative).
3) By getting to step 3 after removing J-Block 1 and Back Probing C6 cavity 9 with illumination Sending me to repair the open, the Parking lights turned on again and would not shut off?


1st edit - Also after replacing the fuse for the wipers I tested them and now are on Low always while key is on. So I left it pulled and continued with the first of the repairs and was going to get back to that, but for some reason I sense this is all related???

2nd+ edits-
I also missed what I now believe to be its first and the beginning of these issues;
There is evidence of an accident repair some time ago? (I/we have no prior history of the vehicle) It appears that a shotty accident repair that replaced the Front right fender, bumper & I believe the radiator support. The harness in question has been re-taped on at least both ends in from the marker housings and I found an additional ground to body added of the WHT/BLK going to the Frt. Lt marker bulb socket! The reason I believe the recent problems began is the harness where the repair work was done on the right side had rubbed through the tape and grounded out in between the harness hold down and the front of the radiator support, in the area under the D.R.L. relay block. This was the first sign of how it got shorted (I thought).

So there’s all of it now, sorry got caught up in the details of the diagnostics and missed this.

Now I’m stuck with 2, 3, issues at the same time and not sure which is the real or (Original) culprit as yet.

Also to add to the problems there is a, what I believe to be a Splice Pack? With 6-7 BLK/WHT wires off to the right of J-Block 1, and there are several of them showing extreme over heating with one beginning to bare/melt the sheathing off????

At this point I would like to know where the end of the wiring harness is for the original repair that I did as to verify that there are not any other wires in the front parking/turn harness to start???

OR?
What would an ASE Certified wiring mechanic start on at this time?

Please, any help getting this thing put back in shape, will be greatly appreciated, let me know as we really need to keep this one running as we’re out of spare vehicles and my daughter has school every day!!!