Tail Light Troubles

[Kneale Brownson]

Well, I'm all lit up again and the alternating brake/amber turn signal flashing is gone too.

Don't know for certain what all provided the "fix", but what I did was replace several bulbs of obvious cheap sourcing (unreadable numbers printed onto the bulb bases instead of stamped in like quality bulbs) with the better quality, replace a dead license plate bulb and clean up all the harness grounds.  There are three grounding sites in the trunk, one on each side of the inner sheetmetal structure behind the wheelwells and one beside the driver side tail light housing.  Two of the three ground sites had obvious corrosion once their fasteners were loosened.  You couldn't see that with the nut/bolts in place.  A little emory cloth, some electrical contact cleaner and a coating of dielectric grease and everything's working well again.

Thanks for all the suggestions.

[burn_your_money]

Thanks for posting what was wrong with it

[somolovitch3]

Back to simple stuff......

Make sure that the sockets for single contact bulbs have single contact bulbs in them (not realy a prob if gotts doubles).

IS problem if double contact sockets have single contact bulbs in them!

Have ypu tried pulling the bulbs from one side and seeing if the othe side needs to rent a movie? (okay very lame joke, but it did get your mind of the tail {lights} for a moment!)

Back to info..left blinker on..Left or right stop light "dancing"?

What happens when you engage the 4-ways? (emergency flashers)

Before rewireing, pull the turn sigle switch conecter and feed each wire (NOT the ground lead) 12v . . .  Does each lamp light up correctly?

Gods, I love doing this stuff !!!!!


Keep us all informed!    

bet it turns out to be somthing really simple, and we all just had to make it fUn!!

[burn_your_money]

Well, I'm all lit up again and the alternating brake/amber turn signal flashing is gone too.

Thanks for all the suggestions.

 

[clbanman]

Don't know for certain what all provided the "fix", but what I did was replace several bulbs of obvious cheap sourcing (unreadable numbers printed onto the bulb bases instead of stamped in like quality bulbs) with the better quality,

I'm obviously getting in on this a bit late as you've already fixed it, but I have had similar problems on several vehicles that ended up being due to defective bulbs.  Also if one filament on a dual bulb comes loose on one end and contacts the other side, it can cause similar problems.  Quick check is to check continuity between the two contacts on the bottom.