No tail lights, fast blinking turn signal

Long story but i will make it as short as possible. Last week I had what i thought was the common trailer harness issue. Stepped on brake, dash lights came on. Drivers side turn signal would work with the headlight switch off, but would stay on solid with headlights on, or brake pedal depressed. So tonight I took my trailer harness off. Turn signal now works with headlights on. But now, my tail lights are not working. My brake lights work. Tail light fuse in the front is good. turn signal fuse is also good. When i step on the brake pedal i get a very faint glow from the left turn signal indicator on the gauge cluster. Before i start tearing into it, is there anyone else who had this issue? I’m not good at wiring. i can check for power at the plug to see if it’s getting power at all but other than that i’m unsure of what to do. any help would
be appreciated. thank you

 

First thing I would do is check your grounds

 

I don’t have a wiring diagram, do you know where the grounds go to
for the tail light harness? or where i could find that info

 

What year is your truck

 

It’s a 2002 DC TRDOR

 

https://www.tacomaworld.com/threads/fuse-grounding-problem.473010/
Try looking at this and see if it helps

 

i will check that out, thanks!

 

No problem

 

These might be helpful. I'm guessing it's a ground too. Seems like the ground the brake lights normally use is disconnected and so the current is flowing through your turn signals instead. Maybe.

 

Also what's your location. Lots of salt, lots of moisture

 

Likely a corroding ground...but could be a soft short somewhere...trailer wiring is pretty good at messing shit up.

 

It also never hurts to clean the sockets ( I use a fitting brush chucked in a cordless drill) some places they just corrode from things being so damp.

Never hurts to clean the bulbs with scotch brite pads

 

fast blinking turn lights usually means the light bulb is bad, or if you replaced the front turn signals with led then the lower resistant could cause it. my lights have been blinking fast since 2005 when i changed over to led

 

So i took the lights out today... Plugs from wiring harness all checked out with the multimeter. found 3 wires were electrical taped together inside both lights, one set was ripped. soldered them back together. didn’t work. now i hear a clicking coming from my center console when i turn the flashers on. and when i hit the brake pedal. like the solenoid or whatever it is that let’s you shift into reverse/drive when you hit the brake pedal. if i turn the turn signal on, it will click in the center console and i can shift into reverse without hitting the brake pedal. i really think the taillight wiring in the lights is so fucked up causing all these issues. i’ve never seen someone else’s this bad. all out of nowhere

 

save yourself the trouble, and just buy the harness online. or better just get after market lights, mine came with new harnesses as well.

 

well i was thinking of doing that, just not sure i wanted to buy new tail lights without ruling all other options out. just don’t know much of anything about wiring so all of this is difficult for me to diagnose. hard to image all these issues are coming from the tail lights themselves and not a bad ground somewhere else in the system.

 

Also, if there’s anyone in the lancaster, Pa area that is good with wiring and would be willing to help, i’m willing to drive and pay to have someone figure this out.

 

by the way, these were very good. i’m going to put new tail lights in and just eliminate them as a possible issue. they have seen better days anyway. seems like the tail light harness grounds at IG, which is inside the drivers footwell. if the new lights don’t fix my issue then i will test that ground from the front of the truck back.

 

well my drivers side tail light came in the mail today. put it in and that did not solve the issue. waiting for the passenger one to arrive tomorrow. not thinking it’s the tail lights at this point. probably in the harness itself somewhere. ill try and keep this thread updated for those who are curious

 

Hmm. If it were me, I'd probably be out there with a meter and the wiring diagram ringing out the wires and making sure the things that are supposed to be connected are, and that they aren't accidentally connected to something else. Time consuming and tedious, but thats the waaaay it goes.