Trouble with tail & parking lights, instrument panel lights

Trouble with taillights, instrument panel lights, parking lights; as common here, can't figure out appropriate Forum Section to post in.

Last fall I posted on

Hmmm....I didn't realize there were 2 different terminal layouts on these!
I'll look at some of mine tomorrow to see what I have here.
I'll post up my findings here.

Yep. You had posted a photo a few months ago for me showing red arrows to the three screws to remove the headlight switch guts, you stated it was a "spare B2600i switch". So if the spare I have actually came from that 1992 B2200 in the parts yard, that makes sense that it looks just like the one in the photo you posted. My spare and the one in your photo both show 5 male push-on terminals sticking out (connector at bottom of switch) and the 6th blank, and a 6-terminal white plug with 4 female push-on connectors fits there (I have that plug from the parts car).

Testing my original switch at various times over the evening and this morning, even after sticking the entire combo switch in Mrs. Cusser's freezer, showed no loss of continuity when I rotated the switch to parking lights or headlights position.

So the plan now (because I don't want to break open that plug and attach the four wires separately, or rig up an adapter plug, or solder the 6-terminal plug onto my wires) will be to re-install my original switch, but feed two wires forward through the column housing then to hang underneath the dash, so I can "jump" those two together if this happens again, and at least then KNOW whether the switch is at fault then, or not.

This might end up being similar to an issue in the early 1980s with #1 Mrs. Cusser's Chevy Luv, where 0.1% of the time it would simply stall while running, then be OK for weeks. That intermittent turned out to be a bad connection under the dash to the fuel pump relay (Luv was essentially just running out of gas and stalling !!!), and simply unplugging the connector and re-plugging it solved the problem forever. So maybe just the act of me unplugging the connectors yesterday, and to re-plug them together later this morning, may end up curing the tail light issue forever.

I will button up the combo switch later this morning, then dive into that front left leaking brake caliper. If I find anything interesting there, I'll do a new post.

I just captured and uploaded a page from the 1991 electronic service manual, shows different combination switches for the 1991 B2200 and 1991 B2600i (below). My 1988 switch looks like the top one, the spare I have looks like the B2600i switch on the bottom. Since my spare did NOT come from any B2600i, maybe by 1992 Mazda had settled in on the B2600i type, because ny spare (I believe) came from a 1992 B2200 Cab Plus.

So mystery "partly" solved. Maybe someone here will want to swap their 4-prong earlier switch for a 5-prong "later" B2200/B2600i switch???

I'll check my stuff (I'm sure I have one!) when I get back from helping Mrs. ABE do some shopping....might be a couple of hours, unfortunately!

I put my original combination switch back in, after stripping some insulation back off the

Damn i had no idea they were diffierent. I grabbed an extra cluster for my 87b2000 from a 93 2600i. I need to check to see if they are the same. It cant be too bad just to splice the plugs

Remember, that page was from the 1991 service manual, maybe by 1992 they were all like that, don't know. But that "newer" one I have as spare is absolutely not from a B2600i (yard never had any of those).

I think it would be straightforward to solder the other connector on (I wouldn't use crimp connections for this). There is plenty of room to solder those connections "in the car" without removing the harness (today I just scraped off some insulation, twisted my pigtail wire around that, soldered it, then wrapped in eletrical tape. I was hoping to slide the female push-on connectors out of the white plug assembly and swap them over, but couldn't (tried a tiny screwdriver, a paper clip too). I noticed that mine had a green/yellow wire as one of the four where the later model switch had a green/black.

UPDATE: Trouble with tail & parking lights, instrument panel lights.

Tonight, coming home from a party tonight, had to use the headlights. I was able to "catch" the truck with the tail & parking lights, instrument panel lights off. So I jumped the two pigtail wires that I had soldered on yesterday, and they immediately came on, and went off when I "broke" that jumper touch. So it really is that part of the switch that is bad.

So now, instead of just having my first two options of (1) replacing the switch and (2) wiring up those lights to a switched-on circuit so they'd always be on when the engine is on, I now have a 3rd. I could wire in an inexpensive toggle switch to those pigtails I soldered in.

With option (2), I'd need to see if my aftermarket headlight reminder buzzer would still work or not, having those on full-time wouldn't bother me at all.

Funny that I just came across this. As you know my turn signals have been giving me issue, they stopped working again. I found a b2600i at the yard and pulled the combo switch from it only to find when I brought it home that the connector was different for the light switch. I took both the old and new apart fully and there are some differences internally as well as the light stalk difference that you pointed out. I tried swapping as many parts from the new switch to my old one and ran into this stalk issue, ended up installing and reinstalling this damn combo switch like 5 times before I got everything to work ok, turn signals still didn't work. Come to find out the lever that engages into the hazard rocker was slightly worn out, so when pushing the hazard switch off, the lever which is supposed to slide strait down into the off position was actually getting wedged slightly at an angle and not moving into the fully off position. It was in the in-between position where the hazards were off but not completing the circuit so the signals could work. I super glued a little piece of plastic as a shim next to the lever so it couldn't get wedged and would slide strait down, and voila the turns now work.

If you are having issues with your headlight switch, its worth taking it apart for a cleaning. Simply have to unscrew the switch from the combo unit and pry the tabs to get the whole mess open, don't worry if the tabs break, the 3 screws that hold the switch to the body of the unit will keep everything together in the end. I found a lot of old grease and dirt build-up on all the contacts in mine, I cleaned it up with some rubbing alcohol, took a scotchbrite to the copper contacts, put new grease in there and put it back together, maybe something like this could help your problem.