'pants

My eye-level reverse lites don't work, but the 'normal' (taillite) ones DO.

There's a fork in the wiring that seems to split up above the driver's legs, where there's a multi-sided connector-block that's got a whole lot of other electrical loads coming through it. The eye-level reverse lites should be getting power over a pink/pink-purple pair of wires that goes along the driver door threshold, through the cab and then up to the lites, but this pair has no voltage on it. I can bypass there with a test battery and the 'dead' lites will come on, so I need to see the details of where the "fork" is to pinpoint the problem.

Any schematics out there? Google failed me.

--Dave

KATOOM

I "think" you're referring to the white lights up on the cab third tail light, right? If so then those are not reverse lights but are bed illumination lights which you can turn on with the dash light brightness adjust **** next to the headlight switch. Turn the **** all the way and those little white lights up there will come on.

'pants

d'oh! Yep, that'd be them.

That might be my bad, but I thought the safety-check dude told me they weren't working and needed to be fixed before they'd sign off. I sure as hell never intentionally used them...Looking back, I probably made some people wonder if I was about to back over them, though...

KATOOM

I'm more concerned that a licensed inspector didnt know they were bed lights. Cant imagine why they would be required to work, but at least now you know they do.

'pants

Our progressively-more-Draconian safety-check system has all kinds of '***?' enforcement items. The five 'clearance lights' on my cab ALL have to work, for example, based on their contention that "if it came with that, it has to work."

Similarly nonsensical is the requirement that, if the inspector sees condensation within a lamp's housing (under my taillight lenses, for example) then the taillight is effectively condemned. Why? I took that one to the top dog with the State's Motor Vehicles inspections div, who said "well, that means your bulbs are gonna burn out." (um...and they don't, normally?)

I've spent a stupid amount of time this year chasing after these superficial issues, and all the time it amuses me in a perverse way that they know nothing about the goofball problem with my brakes that results in intermittent loss of power-assist. It'd be downright scary if I'd not gotten used to it, but "safety check" doesn't look at that, nor even notice the intermittent ABS/brake warning lights. They also haven't noticed that I converted the truck to a dump-bed. I say nothing about that.

But they DID bust me for not having battery-hold-downs (after the old ones rusted through) - and that, says I, would be a marginally-justifiable requirement, even in my 'get out of my old truck's face' thinking...except for the obvious question of how that battery would break free of the 12V post-connections, in any accident so severe that those hold-downs would be relevant...

I think our new-car-sales lobby is FAR more powerful than any voices of unbiased reason in drafting such regulations.

OK, I'm starting to sound like a ranting redneck libertarian, so I will stop there.

KATOOM

Wow..... And I thought the socialisticly driven liberal California I have to deal with is bad.

VADSLRAM

I agree with a lot of what you said but the battery hold down is a definite safety item.
I had an older Trans Am that I figured had the battery so cramped in there was no way i needed the hold down.
Well one time I had left the lights on and the battery went dead after I had thought it was getting weak anyway. So I stuck a charger on it and started checking oil etc as long as the hood was up, GOOD **** THING! about 10 minutes laterI smell smoke and then hear a whoosh. The battery had shifted so much it wore a hole in it, leaked acid all under the battery and down the inner fender, when I was charging it it started outgassing because the cell had no electrolyte got hot and sparked off the hydrogen. Not a continuos flame but it lit off the oil checking rag I tucked next to the battery. If I wasn't right there it could have burnt the whole car instead of just a couple of wires. It cost a bunch to repair the wheel well and splice the burnt wires.
Now I check the hold downs Regularly!

'pants

Fun stuff. Yep, I can see that - a lifetime of sliding around on a rough (steel?) surface would eventually wear it through. In my setting, though, the batteries sit snugly in plastic trays, so the only possible movement would be UP (or down, if I rolled it), so I'd have confidence that the battery cables themselves would keep the batteries from straying terribly far from the vehicle.

Since we're crossing over to 'splosions, though, I thought batteries exploding were for safety posters only - seemed impossible that this could happen in even a marginally-ventilated charging situation, since hydrogen is very light & disperses easily. Then I had one explode while out in the yard, charging in the open air - bits of plastic from the top of the cell blew all over the place. I really don't know why, since it was not the type of battery that did anything to encourage any checking of cells for water - probably a dried-out cell...