Orange wire circuit (dash lights)

[CHL2T]

Hey Guys,
I seem to have an issue with the orange wire circuit on my 70 Dodge. The only way to power it up is to jump a wire from the accessory tab on the fuse box directly to the power in side of the fuse.

All fuses are good and continuity in the whole circuit is good. What wires feed the circuit?

I also had the headlight switch go bad suddenly las week while fixing the right front fender light. Basically the switch works for the running lights only with the on position for the headlights not working.
Took the switch apart to see what was going on and all is normal inside. The orange wire circuit wasn't working before the switch went bad so Im fairly certain the issues aren't related
I pulled the wires out of the switch and put jumpers on them to an external switch as a temporary work around.
Thanks

[Bullitt-]

Don't overlook the headlight dimmer switch located on the drivers floor extreme left side. The connector there is a common fail point. 

The panel dimmer switch located just to the right of the headlight switch controls the orange circuit and would be my first suspect for that issue.

[CHL2T]

Don't overlook the headlight dimmer switch located on the drivers floor extreme left side. The connector there is a common fail point. 

The panel dimmer switch located just to the right of the headlight switch controls the orange circuit and would be my first suspect for that issue.

Footswitch is operational, will bypass the panel dimmer and see If it powers up the circuit
Thanks

[dodj]

Did it work when you bypassed?


Glad to see you made it here CHL2T 

[CHL2T]

Did it work when you bypassed?


Glad to see you made it here CHL2T 

I didn't when I jumped the Switch or dimmer although I didn't spend much time with the dimer so mayhap I jumped the wrong wires.
I'll give it another go soon and report back.
I also have a different dimmer to try as well

[CHL2T]

Had a chance to dink around with the headlight and dimmer switch today, got the headlight switch working but still have no power to the instrument lamps circuit. Tried bypassing the dimmer with no effect. Again the only way to get the circuit powered up is to jump it from the accessory tab on the fuse block.

There's other weirdness going on with the wiper switch as in it aint working either along with the dome light.
All of this happened when I installed a set of rallye gauges a few years ago and I'm beginning to suspect that I missed hooking something up.

Any suggestions are appreciated.

[Bullitt-]

  It sounds like some problems may be due to not having the switch panel grounded..
As I understand it for some of the wiper functions a ground through the switch via the switch panel is necessary.... The panel dimmer switch provides a ground through the yellow wire to the dome/interior ilghts...

  The panel dimmer gets its power from the headlight switch through a black wire. I would check the black wire at the dimmer to see that it is receiving voltage with the headlight switch turned on.    The dimmer switch, if still functional, sends power to the instrument lights out the tan wire,, If there is power on the black wire & jumping to the tan wire does not power the instrument lights on you have a disconnect between the tan wire & orange harness.

   Wiring diagrams available here  https://mymopar.com/wiring/

[73chalngr]

Possibly poor contact at the tri plug . I assume you're disconnecting that circuit at the tri-plug and jumping it to the fuse box from there .

[Jay Bee]

Colored wiring diagrams...

https://forum.e-bodies.org/electrical-and-audio/11/colored-wiring-diagrams-70-cudachallenger/1349/

[jbaha]

I had the kind of the same issue with this circuit. It was a bad grounding, I did a voltmeter conversion and attached a new ground wire to 2 safe points for all the dash things.

[CHL2T]

Thanks for the suggestions and link to the diagrams, I'll check back in and update once I get this fingered out.