electrical/lighting gremlins!!!!

I recently bought my first camaro, (first car actually, all I've ever owned are trucks) and I'm having issues. When I bought the car, I noticed immediately that the engine had been swapped and the old wiring harness was used, and that everything was butchered and destroyed. The problem I have now is that my parking lights and dash lights refuse to come on. My headlights work fine, as do my turn signals, but that's it. They all worked for a while, but when you turned on the lights it would shut off the stereo (not stock, new stereo very unprofessionally installed). I put my head-unit in and wired it up and had the same problem and I just dealt with it for a while. Then at some point I turned on my lights and my stereo stayed on, but the dash lights and parking lights didn't come on. I've already checked all the fuses, replaced the fusible links, replaced the light switch, and rewired my stereo to a random constant hot that was nearby. I'm thinking the previous owner may have wired the stereo to the cigarette lighter somehow and it burnt something out? Please help, I'm stuck on this one!!!!!

hello and welcome to the forums. read your post but we have to have some info. '67 or '02 or?the more info you can give the more help you will get.

According to his profile the camaro is a 1982 Third gen.

It is a 1982 Camaro Z28 with the Pace Car replica option.

According to his profile the camaro is a 1982 Third gen.

as opposed to... a 1982 4th gen? :confused:




edit:forgive me... im such an ass... :icon16:

With the wiring harness being butchered from the engine swap your problem could be most anywhere. You are going to have to trace each wire to make sure that it is taking direct paths to the places they need to go and are not shorted out replacing wires and redoing connections as needed.

If it were me and I had a bit of extra money, I would just get a new wiring harness (from Painless for example) and rewire the whole thing. Obviously, if money is tight and it's your everyday driver, this may not be an option, so good luck with the wire tracing.

Check all your fuses and make sure they are all there and not blown. If they are blown you could have a short somewhere in the system, I don't think anyone here could tell you exactly where the short is if that is the case.

Well, thanks guys.

I guess I'm in for the long haul then, if I can't find the short I'm going to go ahead and buy a new harness. What does everybody recommend? I've heard from a few sources that painless wiring is terrible, although when you call and have them make you a custom harness, is it really that bad? I could understand that the universal kits wouldn't be so great. Isn't M&H Custom Fabricators a great company for new harnesses?

Also, I'm going to remove the cruise control. Since it's a vacuum operated system, all I have to do is buy a wiring harness that isn't set up for it and remove all the components and I'm all set, right?

Once again, thanks for your help guys...

The first place to start with ANY electrical problem is a good diagram of the system(s) effected. And to take into account any symptoms of all systems in the car, no matter how insignificant it may seem, it might point to the common source. That holds true to driveability issue as well :thumbsup: