Last night on the way to Lowe's I had my parking lights on in my 55 F350. A teacher friend of mine was in her new used Mercedes convertible. I was turning left where she was going straight and we talked. I went to Lowe's and parked. She came in and told me my parking lights were flickering. Oh no..... gotta chase that problem. That was a new one to me. In all the years I owned my 54, since 1977, that never happened .....

The ammeter gauge needle would bounce violently back and forth when the parking lights or headlights were on. The headlight switch would make a clicking noise as the needle was jumping back and forth. It would not do this immediately. It would start after about 5-7 seconds after the lights were on.

So today I looked over the wiring going to the parking lights. It all looked good. I took the cap or lid off the voltage regulator. It looked good dry and clean inside. I crawled under the truck looking for a bare wire that was grounding the circuit. I thought about taking the headlight switch out to see why it was making the noise.

I went in to get my shop manual to see where that release button on the switch is located. Then I found the trouble shooting checklist. It said, " If the parking lights flicker there is a ground in the taillight circuit. The overload circuit breaker is operating as a result of this grounded wire."

I found the two wires going into the right taillight were a bit frayed and were either touching each other or touching the taillight base. The one wire was very hot to the touch after having the lights on for just several seconds. Did a quick fix with electrical tape and went off to get a load of mulch after making sure turn signals and brake lights worked. Will make a more secure fix later.

 

good detective work.

 

I think I got lucky that the grounded wire was in a visible place. The hot wire was my first clue.

 

This is exactly why the resetting circuit breakers were used. You didn't totally lose your lights.

 

If I read that right your were driving with your PARKING lights, I don't know about PA but that is illegal out here. If you need any lights while driving, it should be headlights (if you haven't figured it out it is a pet peeve of mine), but I am glad you found out you had a problem and got it fixed.

 

Fortunately you found it before you let the smoke out. That's never good...

 

A quiet comment:

The action of the amp gauge was your cry for help. It was signalling the short - - just as mine did to me. These are simple machines electrically.

 

Not illegal here as far as i know...