Lost park lights, brake lights, and gauge lights all at once.

[SirSner]

So I lost park lights, brake lights, and gauge lights suddenly on my '69 dart. All the fuses and fuse holders are good. Still have front and rear signal lights and headlights. I have the column apart to see if it's the signal light switch but all that looks fine. Any ideas? Thanks.

 

[cudamark]

I don't know of any one part that would kill all three at once that didn't kill something else too. The park and dash lights might a light switch problem, but, the brake lights are separate from that.

 

[Dart Frog]

I'm shooting from the hip here trying to remember but make sure you check your fuse link wire.

 

[slantsixdan]

It's not the fusible link; that would kill the whole car, electrically.

Take a look at your fusebox and see if you have some blown fuses. Let there be a short to ground (for example, one or more of the tail/stop or park/turn light feed wires chafes on the metal edge where it enters the socket) and you'll blow a fuse and lose the applicable lights on both sides of the car. Tail + Park are on the same circuit. Instrument panel lights were on that same fuse in my '65; that was common practice for a lotf years to give you a visual indication at night that you're dark from the rear if something went wrong with that circuit, but it was never a law or regulation or anything, and I think they moved away from that a few years later.

Do you have the factory service manual for your car?

 

[DartDave73]

Since they all went out at the same time, pick one of the circuits and backtrack. I'd start with one of the easiest to work with, like brake lights. Verify power at the fusebox, and go forward from there. When you get to a point where there's no power shown, you're close. Gotta love electrical issues.

 

[RedFish]

Water in the fuse box or failed weld splice are my guesses. Good hunting

 

[SirSner]

So after to much digging I figured out what happened. It was a combination of a bad brand new fuse and the hazard switch being a little dirty. The fuse for the park lights was brand new but when I pulled it out to check the tip of it fell off. And I took apart the hazzard switch because that's where the power from the brake light swtich goes to.