dome/map light won't come on (mostly)

[mixwhit]

I seem to be having the opposite problem of most, which is that my dome light won't come on. I have an '03 XLT ext cab, so it has the triple light dome fixture.

Sometimes, the map lights will work, but only if both doors are closed. Then I can switch one on or the other and they come on. But not always.

I can never get the center light to turn on and nothing turns on when I open a door or turn the dimmer switch up until it clicks.

The owner's manual says the bulbs in the dome light are 904s. It doesn't seem to say what number the fuse-looking bulb is. I pulled it out and it says 212-2. I tried replacing it (and the other bulbs) with another and it made no difference.

I can't find a fuse related to this light. The owner's manual doesn't seem to list it on the fuse block list.

I tried spraying in the door latch with WD40 and then some lithium lube, and then opening/shutting the door a bunch. It didn't make a difference.

Any ideas? Is there a fuse for this light I can check?

thanks

 

[mixwhit]

One more possible clue: the outside bed lights (next to third brake light) come on when I rotate the dimmer dial all the way up. So clearly something in the vicinity of the dome light is getting the message.

 

[mixwhit]

Ok, I figured out the problem, so I thought I'd share the answer here in case someone finds this in a search later.

The problem was that someone (the used car dealer I'm sure) removed one of the three screws holding the dome light to the roof of the car. The electrical connections are carried through these screws. I'm sure what must have happened was that the dome light was staying on (like most people report). Instead of fixing the door contact switches so that all would work as expected, they pulled a screw so that the light would go off.

But since this circuit is a bit complicated, it also screwed up the map lights so that they wouldn't come on unless the doors were shut. And they were intermittent anyway. This would have been due to the door switches still sticking sometimes.

During the course of troubleshooting this problem, I sprayed lube into the door latches and open/closed the doors bunches of times. So once I figured out a screw was missing, found a close enough match from my pile of old screws, and put it in, the thing lit up. *And* it goes off as it should and comes on when it should because I already did all the latch lubing.

I'll keep an eye on it for a while so that I don't end up with a rundown battery. But hopefully that's the end of that problem for a while

thanks for reading

 

[Black'03LevelII]

good findand deffinately helpful for newbs,

when I got my truck the base plate for the doem lights was broken and i only had the middle light and sometimes the one over my head. found me a new plate at the "yard" and replaced it. now I have a clear center bulb and the other two are amber (goes with my color scheme).