I got into my truck in a completely dark area and before I even put the key into the ignition I stepped on the brake pedal and saw a flash from my stereo. I thought I was imagining things so I stepped on the pedal again with the same results.

If I step on and hold the pedal the stereo light doesn't stay on, it just flashes once.
There's no clicking or popping through the stereo when on or off.

I'm wondering if there's a short somewhere causing this.
All of my lights work, I have no trouble with blown fuses, and I can let it sit for weeks without coming back to a dead battery.

I'm horrible at tracking down shorts and hoping the stereo light is just hooked up wrong.
What else should I suspect?

 

Loki being his normal self !!!

Possible things off the top of my head.

Your brake light circuit is grounding back through your stereo light.

Then it could be for whatever reason the stereo light is wired to the brake light circuit.

Is there any alarm or parts of one left??



Do your brake lights come on when the stereo light is on??

Is that the only light that lights up or the only one you can see??

Thor knows just how the light for the stereo is wired in

Is it plugged into the stock radio harness or a big mess of wires with wire nuts and butt connectors??

Shorts are easy to find because something is open or melted or on fire.

As long as the battery does not go dead all the lights work the stereo plays what you want to listen to.

Do you really want to spend hours or days tracking this down??

 

No added options on the truck that I've found. I had to install two license plate bulbs, a brake bulb, and a parking bulb when I purchased it. I think I saw a trailer light hookup when I was under there but I can't remember. Any time trailer lights are added it's suspect in my book. Just too many hurried hack jobs using those fancy unsealed red and blue crimp connectors.
Unfortunately it's supposed to be raining for a few days so I won't be looking under there for a while.

Brake lights look to function normally when key is on. I've checked it several times since I purchased the truck. I'll double check when the key is off to see it they're just quickly flashing as well.

The stereo light is the only one that's acting strange that I've seen.

I haven't seen a mess of butt connectors anywhere yet. The couple I did find were in the engine compartment and replaced.

I'll have to check how the stereo is hooked up under the dash. The last time I was poking around down there I threw my back out. Looking forward to that again...

 

I have only found one short in these trucks due to a wire rubbing on the transmissions, all of the others were due to trailer towing wires and stereo wires that were hard wired in. I would suspect that your stereo was hard wired. Plug and Play kits are available to solve that problem. I would add the factory plugs back to your harness and it will most likely solve it self. I have panic attacks when it comes to shorts as well but so far have been able to fix them by just adding the factory plugs.

 

Thanks for the reply's

I replaced my clutch pedal yesterday and I think I may have found the problem or a problem.
There was what looks to me like a trailer brake controller hooked on the drivers side just above the kick panel.
It was getting in my way and I hadn't noticed a box like that on the trucks at the salvage yard so I investigated.

I disconnected the box's ground wire, unplugged two fuses that were hooked to it, and unplugged it's connector that had several wires coming out of it. I then removed the box leaving the plug and wires hanging there for now.

Since I was right there I unplugged the big factory connector that contains what I think is a main power wire (thick white) and shot some DeoxIT DN5 on the pins and reconnected it. I also cleaned up two small factory ground wires in the area and gave them a coating of dielectric grease before bolting it all back into place, leaving the box out of course.

I turned on the lights and gave the truck a walk around working and observing all light functions and it appears that everything still works correctly. It seemed that they are now perhaps a little brighter but that could be placebo effect.

With the key off I didn't notice the stereo lighting up when I hit the brakes but the moon was pretty bright so I'll have to wait to say 100%. It also seems like my interior lights are brighter and my heater blows harder.

Wyoming, you'd love one of the connectors I found...