Interior Light Delay control?

[cjp_xsport]

I'm not sure where this question should be posted, so I posted here.

I replaced the instrument panel bulbs on my '02 Sport a couple of weeks ago since one of them had burned out. I replaced the six 194 bulbs since I was in there. Things appeared to go well during disassembly and re-assembly.

However, ever since, I have noticed that my interior/courtesy lights don't function like they used to. My interior/courtesy lamps and outside mirror puddle lamps used to stay illuminated for several minutes when I had a door open. Now, the lights only stay lit for about 30-45 seconds before going out. I turn them back on by closing the door from full open to half-way open. It's as if an interior light delay control has reset to a minimum time. I have auto headlights controlled by a slide switch on the interior rear view mirror, but that slide switch has no affect on the courtesy/puddle lights.

When I did the instrument panel lights, I disconnected the battery (both terminals) to protect against the steering wheel airbag while I was working on the IP. The battery was disconnected for about 1-2 hours. Did I inadvertently reset a delay timer by keeping the battery disconnected for that length of time? If so, does anyone know how I could increase that delay?

Anyone have any ideas? I've searched the forum for similar issues, but could not find any.

 

[cjp_xsport]

I guess nobody else has had this on their ex...ok, I'll keep diggin' elsewhere and if I find an answer/solution, I'll post for the next board member...

Cheers.

 

[budwich]

well... don't know about 2002 (this is a 1995-2001 forum)... but according to the truck cd, the timing is set at 25 seconds.

actually, I misread your question a bit.... in 96 (and others), the courtesy lights stay lit for as long as the door is open (lots of people complain about this as they want to be able to manually control this so they can open the doors to "blast" their radios but don't want the lights on). So, not sure what to say.

 

[cjp_xsport]

Thanks for the post Budwich...by the way, I posted here because I have an '02 sport and the text at the top says use this for '02+ sports and sport trac.

Anyway, I'm not worrying about it right now...I'll find out what's up eventually.

 

[cjp_xsport]

Solved problem

Well it took me a while. After a year of living with this, the situation got to the point where the driver's door wouldn't turn on the interior lights when opened. Plus, if I left the key in the ignition and opened the driver's door, the warning alarm wouldn't sound.

I replaced the switch in the door locking assembly, but that didn't solve the problem. After reading about somewhat similar problems in another thread, I carefully looked at the wiring loom passing from the door to the interior kick panel and found the the wire I was having problems tracing to be broken completely; I touched the two sections of broken wire together and found the interior lights and door chime came on. So I spliced in about 3" of wire between the two sections, buttoned everything back up and the driver's door switch is performing as new again.

 

[BrianDye]

Well good job, you dont know how many broken wires ive came across that fixed stupid little stuff like that haha