First off I'd like to thank everybody whose so generously helping me get these lights going! I messed around with it for an hour or so and discovered a few things:
-Truck (1984 Ford F700) appears to only have one fuse box, couldn't find a second under the hood as some suggested
-There are no obvious shorts - I've wiggled all the wires around for the lights and dont see anything new, this also didnt "adjust" their placement enough to "break" the short's connection
-There is no obvious "dangling" wiring, although I did find and remove a bunch I hadnt noticed before. This also changed nothing.
-The fuses concerning the lights are ALL working (multimeter indicates connectivity between their ports)
And the main discovery - is that the (aluminum) fuse gets HOT in that fuse box! It'll literally burn you if its been in there for a few mins. Also, it's started (or I've started to notice) that it arcs/sparks as its connected.
What the heck now? I've never had to diagnose/fix something quite like this before. I dont think its a grounding issue, as I replaced most/all the grounds back there when I installed the new lights, and as mentioned - they *were* working just fine... On a side note, when I wired this thing, I wired in the turn signals/tail lights/brake lights all to share a single lamp, per side - as it was when I bought it. Not sure if that'll change anything, however...
-Truck (1984 Ford F700) appears to only have one fuse box, couldn't find a second under the hood as some suggested
-There are no obvious shorts - I've wiggled all the wires around for the lights and dont see anything new, this also didnt "adjust" their placement enough to "break" the short's connection
-There is no obvious "dangling" wiring, although I did find and remove a bunch I hadnt noticed before. This also changed nothing.
-The fuses concerning the lights are ALL working (multimeter indicates connectivity between their ports)
And the main discovery - is that the (aluminum) fuse gets HOT in that fuse box! It'll literally burn you if its been in there for a few mins. Also, it's started (or I've started to notice) that it arcs/sparks as its connected.
What the heck now? I've never had to diagnose/fix something quite like this before. I dont think its a grounding issue, as I replaced most/all the grounds back there when I installed the new lights, and as mentioned - they *were* working just fine... On a side note, when I wired this thing, I wired in the turn signals/tail lights/brake lights all to share a single lamp, per side - as it was when I bought it. Not sure if that'll change anything, however...