Headligjts dont work.. and bright light switch by foot has no plug ?

[candymancan]

So i got most of my lights to finally work on my J10

But the reverse lights dont work. The headlights dont work either. When i pull the knob once the running lights come on, except the rear.. Twice. Still no headlights.

And the switch on the floor board. There is no plug for it. I dont even see cut wires in the dash or anything when i removed the cluster. So im confused here lol. Will the lights work regardless of the floor switch or no ?

[runuover86gw]

There should be a grey and a grey with tracer wires coming from the low beam and high beam portion of the headlight wiring. Those two wires should be coming from the DS headlight connector and going to a 3 blade connector that goes to the floor mounted dimmer switch. And then there should be a red with tracer wire that goes from the headlight switch to the floor mounted switch. That is the wire that actually powers either the low or high beams, depending on how the dimmer switch is selected. You are going to want some kind of switch so you can select between the low and high beams. Your reverse lights are probably going to be something with your NSS/Reverse Light switch.

[tgreese]

I'm a bit puzzled by what you expect. You have the truck in front of you. The wiring diagram is available either as the diagram itself or as part of the '76 TSM, both free to read and download on the Tom COllins site.

Photocopy the wiring diagram, trace through the wires with colored pencil or pens, and follow the wires on the truck. Use your multimeter if you need to. Some long jumper wires with clips on each end can also help.

From memory, the headlights go through the dimmer switch. Josh is giving you the colors as the wires go across the fender from the firewall to the lights - also from memory. No dimmer switch, no headlights. You can trace back from the headlights or forward from the headlight switch, your choice. Follow the wires.

[letank]

I will suspect that the fuse breaker in the headlight switch has gone south, the switch last 100K or 10 years whichever comes first.
On the 74 I did a full bypass of the headlight switch after the third switch.

The purpose of the breaker is to prevent an instant kill of the headlights at night, the breaker slowly heats up and your headlights progressively dim, as well as the dash lights... Had it happened of course at night... fortunately because of traffic jam, I would put the parking lights on... for a few hundred yards... and managed to make it to base!

the lack of foot switch is a sign that someone was trying to find a cause for bad headlights.

[candymancan]

I'm a bit puzzled by what you expect. You have the truck in front of you. The wiring diagram is available either as the diagram itself or as part of the '76 TSM, both free to read and download on the Tom COllins site.

Photocopy the wiring diagram, trace through the wires with colored pencil or pens, and follow the wires on the truck. Use your multimeter if you need to. Some long jumper wires with clips on each end can also help.

From memory, the headlights go through the dimmer switch. Josh is giving you the colors as the wires go across the fender from the firewall to the lights - also from memory. No dimmer switch, no headlights. You can trace back from the headlights or forward from the headlight switch, your choice. Follow the wires.

What im saying is there are litterally no wires hanging. Or cut in the dash or a plug anywhere for that floor mounted switch. Its weird.

[tgreese]

Trace the wires, starting either from the lights or from the switch. Follow them along with your eyes and fingers. Can't offer any shortcuts, sorry.

[candymancan]

I did they arent there for the switch to the floor. They just go into the harness into the wall.

Onky wire i found cut is a tiny 18ga wire going into the fuse lanel above the radio plug. That red wire went from there into the harness behind the cluster. Thats it. Ill keep looking.

[tgreese]

I looked at the '76 wiring diagram quickly, and the headlight circuit is very simple. The dimmer switch connects to the instrument panel harness - there is no separate harness for the switch as best I can read the parts book and the wiring diagram. Power comes from the headlight switch, goes to the dimmer switch where high or low is selected, and exits to the engine compartment via the bulkhead connector.

You should read the wiring diagram. It's a skill which will help you a lot if you like to work on old cars. Not only does it trace the circuits, it gives you other important information like wire color and size, connector locations, connector shapes and number of pins, stud sizes and locations, plus a table to help you find things by either description or location on the diagram. It's very rich in information, but you have to study it to extract everything it offers.

Likely your single 18 ga wire goes from the foot switch to the cluster for the high beam indigator. It should by 18 gray with a stripe (trace). I would look at the backside of the bulkhead connector (into behind the fuse panel) for the headlight wires. And the headlight switch should have a dangling wire.

If the switch and harness is gone, you'll have to trace out where it would have been and replace it. Possible you could unwind that part of the harness from a donor and add it back. I have primary wire on my shelf, and connectors. I would put the missing wiring back by following the diagram. Likely the connectors are still there in the bulkhead connector. They are numbered and shown by location on the wiring diagram. Get some bright light and compare to the diagram. You have the truck in front of you, we don't. No shortcut, sorry.

[candymancan]

This is the crap im dealing with. There is no grey wire. Whatever looks grey is going to this with an orange wire on the right. This mess of wires goes to the door jam switchs...

The head light switch is all intertwined with these three plugs. Its weird. This mess of bs with a bs step switch that has no plug for it ANYWHERE makes me wanna rewire the headlights to a switch and relay like i did my 90s offroad lights

[candymancan]

There is only 3 red wires.. a white wire. Orange and a black one. Thats it. Tye orange and black are going to the jigsaw puzzle of plugs for the dome lights. And door jam switchs. The white and 3 red go into the harness.

Thats it. Ziltch.. nothing left. So you see why im confused

[candymancan]

Ok i think i found the wires..

Why would someone cut this ?? 4 wires are cut. A red with white, that grey with white you all mentioned.

But then two more on top. Solid grey and grey and black. damn red necks who do this iritate me!!!!!!

I have wire, plugs and stuff to fix this and a spare dimmer switch. But im confused why somekne would do this in the first place.. holy f! Im also confused with 4 wires. I assume the red and grey go to the dimmer switch. Power is red from the headlight switch.. and the grey black is probly high beam.. and the solid thinner grey is probably low beam.. but i dunno why there are two grey whites. Maybe there is two solid grey too and i gatta look. 1 for each headlight.

Sorry guys this is just so annoying when rednecks cut wires like this. Why ?? Would anyone cut their own headlights off

[candymancan]

Nvm the grey black with the red wire goes inti the harness. But no idea where too from there.. The red has power when i pull the switch out all the way.

The other two greys are high and low beam. I just gatta figure out what that 3rd grey black wire by the red one is for? is that grey wire even needed. The dimmer switch has 3 plugs. Power, low and high beam. So whats the 3rd grey wire for ? I found one that goes into the intrument panel. I assume thats the one. But what does it power a high beam indicator ?

Which page on the TSM are you guys finding this diagram. I cant seem to find it.


Dude cut the low and high beam wire so close to the firewall connector ima have to cut them in the engine bay and wire them from the fire wall.

[runuover86gw]

The two grey with tracer wires that go to the foot mounted dimmer switch are for the high beams. One goes to the driver's side headlight and the other goes to the high beam indicator on the instrument cluster. The single solid grey is for the low beams and goes to the driver's side headlight and then jumpers off to the passenger side headlight. The red with tracer wire goes directly to the headlight switch. Here is a link to the 76 wire schematics. If you scroll down, you will find the wiring diagram for all of this information on pages 11 through 15. https://oljeep.com/gw/76_tsm/Section22.pdf

[candymancan]

I got it. Thanks for the help.

The one Grey tracer was for high beams. The 2nd grey tracer was for high beam indicator on the cluster. The solid grey is low beams. The red tracer is power. I unscrewed the fuse panel to get to the low and high wires he cut right at the fire wall there was just enough to remove insulation and butt connector for new wire. I didnt really wanna cut in the engine bay and run new wires through another hole.

All wired up and works now.

I have no damn idea why bubba redneck in the VA mountains who i got this Jeep from, CUT the head light wires.. i mean god damn. Who tf does that.....

Now i gatta figure out why no reverse and running tail lights.

Aparently this headlight switch the white wire goes to reverse im reading. Thats weird. Also while in there it looks like bubba redneck ran a 14ga wire from thr fuse panel using a open single connector on the panel to the cig lighter.. im assuming to turn it into a 12v plug for a phone.. with no fuse of course... lol

[Srdayflyer]

does REDNECKED hacker come to mind, dike wires till nothing works then give up and sell the problem to some else. thats the Pennsyltuckee way of auto repair

[candymancan]

The switch on the floor was bad. Intermident.. i had a spare. I guess Redneck was like WHEEELP ima cut the wires.. see if that fixes it

[tgreese]

Book says that the reverse lights are switched by the neutral safety switch, on the steering column somewhere.

Floor switch is a common failure. Switches all the headlight current, and gets a lot of action. Contacts wear out.

Good progress.

[candymancan]

Well, I got the rear lights to work. The running lightsas I was working on the sidelights in the rear. I had to redo the ground For those Lights. And I managed to get all 4 of the running lights working. I decided to try the reverse lights again. One of them worked And as I was unscrewing the housing it turned off. I realized that the metal housing is the ground for the lights in the rear. So I unscrewed the housing on the reverse light. And I grabbed the metal thing that sticks out that the bulb plugs Into and I started to twist it left and Right. Which broke the corrosion and when I screwed The metal housing back into the jeep the reverse light came on.

There is one more wire that's just hanging there and it's spiced and soldered into the rear running lights on both Sides And they're both cut and I have no idea where those go to. Because all my lights work in the back now. The license plate lights have their own plug. So I have no idea what this redneck did spicing these wires into the running lights in the rear.

I think I'm just gonna cut that off. And but connect the 2 green wires back together.

I think in the end I'm going to just cut off. All these connectors and wire new ones in

[candymancan]

Ok while i have this thread.. what about the gas gauge ? It just stopped working.. worked fine when i put the tank back in.. made sure to clean the semding unit contact and made sure the connector was tight on it. Worked for a week.. then became intermident.. had to tap the gauge with my finger to get it come back to life.. Now it just sits on empty with a full tank

[tgreese]

You need to isolate the sender from the gauge, and test separately. The TSM has a chart that shows steps to diagnose gauge problems.

Suggest you look at the '82 TSM on the Tom COllins site. Section 1-L. The '82 book much better about the gauges than the '76 book, and they work the same.

There is a lot written about this topic in old posts.

The sender is connected to the gauge by a pink wire. There is a connector at the sender, and the sender must be grounded through the gas tank steel to the chassis.

If you lose connection between the sender and the gauge, or lose the tank ground, the gauge will go to empty.

The connector at the tank could be bad. The tank ground could be bad. The is a connector to the chassis harness under the driver's side footboard/floor.

You can ground the pink wire, either at the bulkhead connector (stick a pin in the back of the connector and ground it) or at the chassis harness connector (under the driver's floor). Don't leave it grounded for long, but grounding the sender wire should make the gauge move to full.

If the gauge goes to full, the problem is in the wiring or tank ground. If not, move closer to the dash and try grounding it again. Eventually you'll either find the wiring problem (gauge moves) or condemn the gauge or cluster.