Very good question. And to tell you the god's honest truth, I don't remember.
I do remember a few years ago, I tried stuffing a cable in that footwell before a 2.5 hour drive out of state. Left home around 3pm. Started back around 11pm and turned on my headlight. No dash lights, no driver tail lights. No tools, so drove home with brother in law close behind me and ultra guage setup for speedo. Pulled the panel next day, because it was the only thing I touched before I left, and tighten everything. Problem solved.


So it's not careful diagnosis on this one, its memory from an incident that happened to me. And from the OP's description, it sounds pretty close.

 

number9, you helped me find a clue! RH forward side light is NOT working, I hadn't previously noticed. What were you saying might be connecting those two issues? Couldn't quite get what you meant.

 

This is embarrassing. It was a fuse. A missing fuse. That I removed a couple months ago, thinking it was a spare fuse, because I had misread the diagram under the dash. Golly.

I had tested all the other light fuses in the car, all of them, but somehow missed this on the diagram, and missed that the slot was empty.

"Mystery" solved. Lesson learned: Thoroughly go over the basic possible problems before progressing to more complex solutions. Thanks for the help guys. Someday I'll earn my wings.

 

Glad you got them working.
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