Headlight switch power and meltdown

[RadChad]

Headlight switch meltdown

So I am building this ‘79 c10 with my 16 yr old and a couple weeks ago he took it to his last day of school and promptly forgot to turn the cab lights off after showing them off in the morning - of course the battery went dead. His buddy was “helping” him jump the truck and put the negative to the positive for about 10 seconds, which melted some wires. Most notably, the brown taillight wire in the headlight switch as well as the double orange wires which are for courtesy and (I think) taillight wire.

Question is: I think I have straightened out the brown wire mess and thought that the red wire brings power to the switch. Also, I only connected (or re-connected) one of the orange wires to where I thought I traced it to, but I still have no running lights, tail lights, dash lights. Am I incorrect about the red wire providing power? Is the other orange wire bringing power to the switch or is it somehow related to my lack of lights? The two pics show the burned wires and then my (at the time) fix. The blue wire resides where the brown wire was, and the orange wire had the red butt connector. I have since sourced a couple factory clips but still no power. Fuses were all good. Any help greatly appreciated.

 

[Ricko1966]

Do you have power to the red wire and the orange wire? Red wire is headlight power,orange wire is taillight power.

 

[RadChad]

I have 12v power to the red but not the orange. When I pull the switch out there is no power to the brown, which I believe there should be. Keyed switch on or not does not change the test

 

[Ricko1966]

I have 12v power to the red but not the orange. When I pull the switch out there is no power to the brown, which I believe there should be. Keyed switch on or not does not change the test

Orange is power supply for the taillights. GM uses 2 power supply's for the headlight switch. Red is for the headlights and there is an internal breaker in the headlight switch itself, so you can't blow a fuse and lose headlights,it's a safety deal. The tail light power supply should be orange and it is fused,losing taillights on the highway is NBD like losing headlights. So back to what I was saying. You need power on red and on orange.

 

[RadChad]

Oh dude, that is soooo helpful! I did an ohm test on a couple different switches (thought maybe switch was bad) and that is what I discovered last night. The orange wire appears to be a double wire going into the switch. Do you happen to know the path or if I am even correct? I will be diving back into this tomorrow. Many thanks!!!

 

[Ricko1966]

The double orange pics up power from the tail light/ courtesy fuse and also supplies power to an optional courtesy lamp.