Dash Lights Stay On

[mkcoen]

The Gen 1 and Oil Pressure gauges stay lit on my 1009 when the engine is off and when the Service Drive switch is off. Both of them go out as normal when you start the vehicle but come on and stay on when everything else is off.

Any ideas?

 

[mkcoen]

bump

 

[Bobert]

Do they do it when the key is out?

 

[mkcoen]

Do they do it when the key is out?

Yeh that's what's been confounding me. I finally found a solution that took care of it but didn't fix it and that was to take the bulb out of the Gen1 socket.

I thought I would be able to just remove a fuse but I can't find one that takes care of that socket. The instrument panel fuse only takes care of the illumination bulbs not the specific idiot light bulbs.

 

[mkcoen]

I was convinced I had a short somewhere that was causing the problems. Why else would phantom lights come on and the battery drain? After I had gone through some of the logical places for a wear rub I recharged the batteries, replaced the Gen1 lamp and fired it up. Now the Gen1 light stays on constant.

I figured I'd run down to NAPA and have them test the #1 alternator to see if it was good but they couldn't do it while it was on the vehicle due to the 24volt battery circuit so I drove home, took the alt off, drove back to NAPA and it wouldn't fit in their bench machine. (I really used to like NAPA).

Today I took the alt to a rebuilder. He put it on his tester and confirmed it was toast. Luckily he had an exact match on the shelf so I could get going again.

Reinstalled #1 alt, tightened everything down, fired it up, no more phantom lights.

I have no idea why it caused these problems unless there was a short inside the alt that was pulling juice from the battery. Why would it cause lights to come on when everything was off though?

Any way, if your dash lights won't shut off try the alternator. Makes no sense to me but then I was a grunt so all those pretty wires just confuse me.