I was adding external back up lights on my 03 silverado and forgot to ground them and shorted out my primary reverse lights. i checked the fuses and the bulbs and they are all good but the primary reverse lights still wont come on. any ideas

 

Did you disconnect the externals and still the primaries don't light? How did you wire the externals? Are they in series with the primaries or? If they're in series the entire circuit must be complete from one end to the other. Also, wiring them in series MAY (and I could be wrong) cause too much of a voltage drop so there wouldn't be enough flowing to light them all.

 

yes I disconnected the externals and primaries still didnt light up. But before they went out they were working just fine neither lights dimmed or anything. and i was re locating the externals and thats when both primary and externals went out and thats when I disconnected the externals and checked the fuses and bulbs.

 

sounds like you fried the reverse light part of the switch on the tranny........I dont remember there being and fuseable links back that far.

 

When i put external backup lights on mine i used a set of driving lights aim low to the ground. I tapped power from the main light on the drivers side tail light. Since my reverse lights rarely worked when in reverse i traced the wire and sniped it right before in entered into the firewall (pretty sure it was a slime green color) and ran a new wire to a LED toggle switch.. worked great ever since. only issue i had was in the daytime i would sometimes forget to turn em off and come out to a dead battery so i hooked the switch up to a buzzer and now its all good.