Painless Performance - No tail light/dash light issue
 

I am writing this email so that some day it might help someone else from going thru great amounts of time to fix this problem.

I worked on and off since last fall trying to find the reason why my tail lights / dash lights suddenly stopped working on my 72 chev which is equipped with a new painless performance harness.

To understand the issue, I lost my tail lights/ dash lights after my truck came back from the body shop.

Suspected bad grounding from new paint. This was not the case.

Suspected damaged wiring in the harness running to the tail lights . This was not the case.

Suspected bad grounding of the dash harness. This was not the case.

Suspected the head light switch. This was not the case.

There is no fuse for the tail lights or dash lights on the painless harness, so fuse could not be the case, or so I thought.

I emailed Painless, they told me that there was no fuse for the tail light or dashlight and it must be the headlight switch. I tryed this already so I knew that they were wrong.

The only thing left to do was to verify power to the headlight switch with the different wires. Had only main power going into the switch, but no power coming from the taillight and dash wires.

Then suspected damaged wires coming out of the new fuse panel. Ripped the new panel off of the firewall and traced the wires. Well what do you know. Found the Orange #959 wire connected to a green wire that was coming out of the HORN fuse of all things. Pulled the horn fuse and what do you know, a blown fuse. Replaced it, and immediately had tail lights, dash lights, and marker lights.

The reason for this email is to warn anyone with a painless performance 18 circuit harness that the tail lights/dash lights/side marker lights are fused, contrary to the advise of the Painless tech line, and they are fused at the HORN fuse.

I wish I would have had better advise from the tech line, I wasted alot of time. On the up side, my lights are now working again.

This should be posted in the FAQ pages.
AND e-maild to painless...I have only heard good things about them untill this .

Thank you for the heads up!

Re: Painless Performance - No tail light/dash light issue
 

I am having this same problem right now

Is the Orange and green wire inside the fuse block?

Re: Painless Performance - No tail light/dash light issue
 

Mountian Man

You saved my sanity with your post. I have a Painless 22 circuit which I installed in a 1950 Chevy Fleetline. I also have had terrible experience with Painless Techs. They are arrogant, cocky, and talk down to you. On the other hand, I have worked with American Autowire, and if you are not electrically inclined, they are Great to work with.

Back to the problem. I also was told exactly the same thing by a number of people. The switch is bad.

After countless hours of checking, rechecking, and teaching myself how to test the circuits, I found the same thing you did. The orange wire had no power.

Before I tore out the panel for the fourth time, I Googled it and found your post.

YOU WERE EXACTLY RIGHT!!!

Thanks

Jeff in Tucson.

Re: Painless Performance - No tail light/dash light issue
 

One more thing....

I am using an early chevy lightswitch, Painless has a wiring diagram on their site. The only thing they forgot to mention, is that the orange wire needs to power the rear and instrument panel.

When looking at the switch drawing of the Danchuck switch, with the knob to the right, the orange wire needs to connect to the lower second terminal from the left.

Re: Painless Performance - No tail light/dash light issue
 

Kinda cool a 12 year old thread can help someone out ... Glad you got it figured out.

THIS^!!!!!
15 years later a blown horn fuse had me pulling my hair out about to rip the whole harness off the firewall
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Thank you Mountain Man, 15 years after you experienced the same Painless issue, I found your post and saved myself countless time. Thank you and bless you Mountain Man!!
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Re: Painless Performance - No tail light/dash light issue
 

I wish I would have found this post last night. I spent 3 hours finding out the same issue -> dash lighting positive (+) is tied to the horn fuse on the Painless fuse block designed specifically for the 67-72 Chevy trucks. I pulled my horn fuse due to some sort of short to ground in my new steering column switch (uggh) which caused my horn to always be on. There is a "Gauges" fuse on in the fuse block, which would be the obvious place to look, but that fuse is not for the dash lighting. I have aftermarket gauges, so I'm not sure what that fuse even does.