So...some damned bonehead (me) connected a winch light without a fuse, with a switch near the hood release. Everything worked great, until some time later I removed and replaced the trim panel containing the switch...and crossed the wires, resulting in the hot wire all the way back to the battery getting hot and melting the insulation. Now, I've got the dreaded Christmas tree of errors.
Vehicle still starts and drives more or less normally, but with lowered suspension "for safety". Brake lights don't work but the engine starts. Basically this means that one side of the brake pedal switch is working but the other side is not working.
Brake pedal switch is operating normally (yea, it is tricky to test it, but thanks to YouTube I managed to successfully test it). However, the center pair of wires are hot and ground (as expected) while the outer pair of wires are both dead.
Yellow/purple wire from the brake pedal switch has some melted insulation where the offending wire ran past it. This probably means that this wire had 12V short directly to the battery. See attached pic of the damaged wire. When I found this I had dreams that it was just a damaged wire...but probing higher up, it appears that the wire is in tact, so the damage is deeper.
So, did I fry this channel in the CJB or did I fry this channel in the ECM...or other? Any ideas on how to troubleshoot this?
Possibly related (or maybe coincidental) my battery is dying. It seems that the parasitic draw is too high...7A for a few minutes after the engine is shut off. Maybe damage in ECM causing high parasitic draw?
Vehicle still starts and drives more or less normally, but with lowered suspension "for safety". Brake lights don't work but the engine starts. Basically this means that one side of the brake pedal switch is working but the other side is not working.
Brake pedal switch is operating normally (yea, it is tricky to test it, but thanks to YouTube I managed to successfully test it). However, the center pair of wires are hot and ground (as expected) while the outer pair of wires are both dead.
Yellow/purple wire from the brake pedal switch has some melted insulation where the offending wire ran past it. This probably means that this wire had 12V short directly to the battery. See attached pic of the damaged wire. When I found this I had dreams that it was just a damaged wire...but probing higher up, it appears that the wire is in tact, so the damage is deeper.
So, did I fry this channel in the CJB or did I fry this channel in the ECM...or other? Any ideas on how to troubleshoot this?
Possibly related (or maybe coincidental) my battery is dying. It seems that the parasitic draw is too high...7A for a few minutes after the engine is shut off. Maybe damage in ECM causing high parasitic draw?
