1750 Round Tail Spider Rear and Front Prk Lights

[dimitridodys]

I just recently had my car repainted. The car was completely disassembled. When the car was re-assembled the front parking lights and the tail lights stayed on continuously and would not turn off until I actually unplugged them.

Something obviously went wrong when the car was reassembled. Or, could it be a coincidence that the light switch is going bad?

Any advice would be appreciated.

[Peter]

of course, could be a switch going bad. Do you have a wiring diagram? Check how it has been connected. Here's one of a 1600 Duetto Spider (credits to Papajam), my guess is that the lights will be wired similarly

[Alfajay]

Well, that is truly weird.

You haven't given us a lot of information to go on, however... You wrote "The car was completely disassembled", but please define "completely disassembled" a little further. Do you mean the dash was taken out, the wiring harness removed, the light switch taken off, everything underhood removed, etc. etc.? Or do you just mean that the parking and taillight assemblies were taken off? If the former, then I would guess a wiring error occurred when the fusebox or the light switch was reconnected.

It is possible that the light switch just decided to fail - I suppose exposure to the dust in the bodyshop could have killed it - though I would have expected the failure mode to be "always off", not "always on".

Again, tell us more about the symptoms. Are you saying that the headlights work just fine, but the parking lights don't turn off? How about the turnsignals & brake lights - do they work OK? Are the parking lights as bright as they should be, or sort of dim (which might simply indicate that the housings aren't grounding against the newly-painted sheetmetal)?

[dimitridodys]

Thanks for responding. Electrical problems get me in a panic.

The car was not completely disassembled. More accurately, stripped of all lights, chrome/bumbers/door handles/emblems etc. The dash was not disturbed. The car was in a very dusty environment for six weeks without a top.

I hate to say that I cannot respond to the presence of other symptoms because I did not investigate much further than the front prk and rear lights staying on.

Currently, the battery has gone dead. Also, I noticed by the position of the wind shield wipers that they had operated at some point while the car was parked.

Even though the batery is dead I have disconnecetd the power source as a precautionary measure.

Prior to all this body and trim work, everything worked fine.