• Welcome to the new NAXJA Forum! If your password does not work, please use "Forgot your password?" link on the log-in page. Please feel free to reach out to [email protected] if we can provide any assistance.

My dome light is stuck on

JIMBOJAMES

NAXJA Forum User
Location
Shawano WI
Well my dome light is stuck on. The switch is on the off position. The only thing electrical I have done lately was run wires for my CB.
 
The dome light switches work by grounding the circuit. Somewhere you have probably done one of two things.

1. shorted a wire in the circuit to one of the switches to ground.

or

2. accidentally disconnected some other ground, or failed to ground a new component properly, so that some component is now seeking ground bass-ackwards through the dome light circuit.

The dome lights share a fuse and positive feed with a couple of other circuits, including, if I recall rightly, the one that feeds the clock and memory for the radio. Time to get on your back and start probing under the dash.
 
If you run out of other possibilitiies and are about to give up, look under the drivers side carpet. There is a taped bundle (Renix) of wires that kind of just runs under the carpet and the splices get green and short out. One of the signs, is a dim but constant on dome light.
If you have electric seats and are under there anyway, look at the seat wires that run under the carpet and over the hump to the passengers side, they also sometimes corrode and short.
I`ve also seen the wires to the back of a door switch get twisted during installation and cause problems. Have you recently replaced any switches?
I had one Renix, that if the rear dome button switch was switched on, all the dome lights would stay on. Don't know how many times I shut the last door and the light stayed on, I'd then try the headlight switch, then ended up walking around the back to turn the rear dome switch off (the kids would switch it on, the first time was really interesting). I've seen all sorts of differnt rear dome light setups, yours may not be the same.
The dome light switch inside the rear hatch in the Renixs, often turns to a big clump of rust. The wire rotted off both of mine and was hanging loose.
 
Hope you didn't do what I did. It turns out turning the dimmer switch (knob on the headlight control) until it clicks causes the interior lights to stay on. I, of course, had no idea that this was a feature or that I had rotated the knob far enough. Took me about 10 minutes to figure it out.
 
I was gonna say check the headlight switch, but Wraithblade beat me to it. Always start with the basics.

You could also have a bad door switch.
 
Door switch.
 
Back
Top