Parking light

[kc7bur]

OK, this is bugging me. The front right parking light works when it wants to. When it does work, there is a faint glow in the right turn signal indicator in the dash board. When it's not working, bright glow in the turn indicator.
I've changed bulbs and cleaned the socket.
Where is a good starting point to look for a short?
Maybe poor ground?
Has anyone else had this annoying problem?

It's an '89

 

[90NHXJ]

Yes, I had to change the whole socket. Got it from a junk yard. The old one had fried when it corroded and heated up when the contact area had gotten too small. Definitely check the ground. It would do the same thing. Work intermittently and cause the indicator light to glow when it wasn't working well.

 

[Eagle]

Ditto. Check ground. The glowing indicator means the lamp is seeking a ground through the dashboard.

There's a multi-terminal connector on the driver's side behind the headlight and in front of the air box. I believe all the front lighting goes through that. Check it for corrosion.

 

[kc7bur]

OK, thanks for the good start. I'm going to trace it down next day off.
I've found some connections to be dirty at other points. I figured it is a ground issue, but where to start was the problem.

 

[Rev Den]

I had the same thing happen. After about an hour of tracing circuits...it turned out to be a open filiment in the parking light bulb.


Rev

 

[kc7bur]

It ended up being the light socket,,
easy fix.

 

[SPSERG]

when you replaced the socket, it fixed the problem?? My 88 is driving me crazy. The right side signal will not flash, it stays on. Then when I turn on the headlights, the right side indicator stays light. I looked at the socket today, it looks OK, then changed the bulbs no difference. The left side works fine. Where did you get the new socket?? Junkyard??

 

[Greg Smith]

Replace the socket w. a ford style three wire socket from autozone or advance autoparts for about $5. This is a common problem. The ground inside the socket goes bad over time. Greg

 

[red87cherokee]

when you replaced the socket, it fixed the problem?? . . .

Yep. Exact same problem, solved by replacing socket.

Where did you get the new socket?? Junkyard??

Generic socket from Ace Hardware.

There's a multi-terminal connector on the driver's side behind the headlight and in front of the air box. I believe all the front lighting goes through that. Check it for corrosion.

Replace the socket w. a ford style three wire socket from autozone or advance autoparts for about $5. This is a common problem. The ground inside the socket goes bad over time. Greg

Only thing I did different is that I replaced all the sockets, figuring if one was bad the others could be iffy.

I just used electrical solderless taps to connect the wires to the existing wiring, so, (in my case anyway) like Greg said - it was the socket itself. Fortunately, I didn't need to track the problem any further, like Eagle suggested.